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Norm Douglas

@ringstem.bsky.social
959 followers 1.3K following 94 posts

Botanist and educator. Personal account.

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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
This is very good news. ncbg.unc.edu/2026/08/31/u...
ncbg.unc.edu
UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke to combine herbaria, creating the third-largest university plant collection in the United States - North Carolina Botanical Garden
The combined herbaria will create an unmatched archive for studying plant diversity in the southeastern United States (Chapel Hill, N.C.— Aug. 31, 2026) UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University will unite....
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
This is maddening esp. on top of what they're doing in Big Bend. The first wall is bad enough; an extra one behind it seems like a way to keep money flowing to contractors and flip a big middle finger to our national parks. I take a class to this exact spot for the unique biodiversity found here.
tucson.com
Organ Pipe monument closes roads to clear path for 2nd border wall construction
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument closes roads during work on the second border wall, as a tree-sitting protest continues in Lochiel.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Crazy to feel an actual earthquake in Florida a few minutes ago.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Actual botanists don't feel like they need to lie to their neighbors about their jobs.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Camellia season.
Red Camellia flower
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Nicole Gerlach @ngerlach.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
This is probably a minor thing to fixate on in the whole mess of nonsense that was Jurassic World: Rebirth, but I can't get over the Dunkleosteus head pulled up by fisherman in the beginning. Where the hell did inGen or whoever get its DNA from? 🧵 1/
A still from Jurassic World: Rebirth showing the head of a Dunkleosteus on top of a pile of normal-sized fish. We're looking at it mouth-first, and its jaws are almost as big across as the man standing next to it. They're also filled with huge irregular "teeth" (actually bony projections of the armored plates that cover the front part of its body).
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
We must all hang together or we will all hang separately.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
nytimes.com
Trump Wants a New Border Wall. It Would Block a Key Wildlife Corridor.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Thunderstorm got me trapped in my little greenhouse with two dogs and a beer.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Atala, Eumaeus atala, at Selby Botanical Garden in Sarasota. Larvae feed on cycads!
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Rob @robertferry.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
"If you don't know anything, you don't have a problem." Measuring biodiversity and ecosystem health is crucial to knowing how rapidly decline is taking place and if anything we are doing is helping to mitigate our impact. If this passes, we will be flying blindly into oblivion.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
As a Norm, this is officially the end of an era.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
I love this account.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
That’s neat.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
this is the way
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
iNat says this is Ammophila pictipennis. How does this waist make any sense?
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
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Sarah Brown @brownepoints.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
NEW: DeSantis directed the University of Florida to cancel a nearly-complete search for its next dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences — because the governor believed the finalists were not in alignment with the state's opposition to DEI
chronicle.com
U. of Florida Calls Off Dean Search After DeSantis Intervenes
A spokesperson said the governor’s office stepped in after a right-wing group posted videos of the finalists on social media and claimed they were “radical progressives with disdain for Florida’s DEI ...
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Merch for UF’s national championship, which was played in San Antonio, Texas. Whoever chose the background was absolutely trolling this botanist. Saguaro-itis strikes again.
Florida gators basketball championship t-shirt with cacti growing on a mountainous coastline.Closeup of a saguaro 🌵 cactus. This species doesn’t occur within 800 miles of San Antonio, Texas.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
Efficiency.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Why Did Elon Musk Go After Bunkers Full of Seeds? (Gift Article)
Gene banks are like a survivalist cache: our nation’s safeguard against all future challenges to growing the food we need.
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Matthew Hurteau @mhurteau.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
You can’t sell timber if no one is buying. This is like opening up drilling in the arctic. No one is bidding. Sure they’ll sell a little timber, but it will be taxpayer subsidized timber.
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Mark Cuban @mcuban.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
This is a bigger issue than people realize. Not just jobs lost. But their families losing benefits. Landlords losing tenants. Cities and towns losing revenue. This is how recessions start Ready Fire Aim is no way to govern.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Quote post with a picture you took in a National Park. Some UF Biology students who journeyed from Florida to study the biodiversity of the desert southwest- here completing an incredible hike of Arch Canyon, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. This class doesn’t happen w/o our public lands!
UF Desert Biodiversity immersion course at Organ Pipe.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Hammock season.
Birdie the border collie digs the hammock
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Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 02/02/2025
The point is this: Scientists are accused of being partisan. I say embrace it. We're not lying for political reasons. We are defending science as a way of knowing, and as a humanitarian endeavor to help even those groups that are disenfranchised by people in power. If that's partisan so be it.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 03/02/2025
So it turns out that compared to centralized distribution of digital information on the web, printed material in libraries provided a kind of distributed defense against the casual whims of an authoritarian government aiming to rewrite history.
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Ethan White @ethanwhite.weecology.org · 28/01/2025
Imagine if you're a graduate student who knows they are funded on a federal grant, but doesn't understand the distinction between disbursed and undisbursed funds. You might reasonably think you won't get paid next week even if there is a year or more of your support in a university account already.
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Julianne Zelda Kiely 🌿Commissions open🌿 @palaeojules.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Phyllochrysa may have also been mimicking Selaginella, which was later identified from the Myanmar amber by Schmidt et al, 2022. This is a diagram I made for a blog in 2019, so it needs updating. Also, just a note: Myanmar amber is ethically horrible, and studies on it should no longer be supported.
Diagram with pictures of a frilly league like insect, and some plant remains in amber, and a photo of a living selaginella. In the top left there is a drawing of a frilly, leaf like insect larvae, and on the left there is an insect with long jaws carrying a mound of debris on its back.
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
For what it’s worth, North America has a native caffeine producing plant, Yaupon holly, a close relative of Yerba Mate. It grows abundantly as an understory tree in the southeast.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Yaupon tea - Wikipedia
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
Hmm… I just realized sometimes they use Parafilm for bananas.
Banana bunch with the end wrapped in parafilm.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
It’s early but Gators got the #1 team doubled up!
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Final grades will be posted as soon as I’m able.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
I’m sure I’m not the first to guess that the answer was 42.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
Variation among the Asimina angustifolia (Annonaceae) around the house.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 09/11/2024
Plant disease, hort folks: any recommendations for my kumquat and mandarin trees? (N. Fl). On the kumquat only older leaves are yellowing but on the mandarin, they seem to yellow shortly after reaching full size. Is this greening or just a nutrient issue?
Yellowed kumquat leafYellowed kumquat leafYellowed mandarin leafYellowed mandarin leaf
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
I love the bark of live oaks, oh hey…
Grizzled mantis (Gonatista grisea)
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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 25/11/2024
Joshua Tree National Park is looking for a new Vegetation Ecologist, a great chance to take on an important hands-on role in conservation of Mojave Desert plant communities 🌿
buff.ly
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
The US *already* has tariffs, import quotas, and subsidies that basically mean Americans have been paying ~ double the world price of sugar. Main beneficiaries are 3 sugar outfits in near the Everglades. Lots of ecological fallout, and also why we use so much corn syrup in this country.
Graphic showing monthly price of sugar in the USA, the EU, and the world.
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Markus Eichhorn @markuseichhorn.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
My favourite botanical mistake is Lilium pensylvanicum, a species that occurs widely across boreal East Asia but isn't found in Pennsylvania, or indeed anywhere in North America, except as a later introduction.
Lilium pensylvanicum from Wikimedia Commons. File is labelled as Lilium dauricum which is now a replaced synonym but I've kept the original file name for traceability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilium_pensylvanicum#/media/File:Lilium_dauricum_2009-06-29.jpg
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Dan Sloan @sloanevolab.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Did you know that orchids have a big chunk of fungal mtDNA stuck in their own mitochondrial genomes?? In this new preprint, we found that fungal-derived tRNAs are functional in the orchid mitochondria. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/4
The coral root orchid Corallorhiza maculata
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Today is the first day of the season in Florida where it’s slightly cooler outside than inside, and I just saw someone walking a huge (panting) pit bull in a pink sweater and dog crocs.
Dog crocs
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Ch-ch-ch-chia, with pet. First time finding Salvia hispanica as a volunteer in the yard.
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
I can’t decide if this flower is blue or green!
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Norm Douglas @ringstem.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Uh, what? That thing looks like it belongs in the Carboniferous.
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Laiken Jordahl @laikenjordahl.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
An endangered Mexican gray wolf was found dead near Flagstaff last week. F2979, a female named "hope" embodied the dreams of full recovery. With USFWS & other orgs, we're offering $100k+ for information that leads to conviction for this senseless tragedy. READ: www.knau.org/knau-and-ari...
knau.org
Reward offered after endangered Mexican gray wolf found dead west of Flagstaff
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says an endangered Mexican gray wolf was found dead west of Flagstaff last week.
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Joel Sachs @sachslab.bsky.social · 01/11/2024
I'm so excited to announce that my department is now hiring TWO ECOLOGISTS at the Assistant Professor Level. We will be really excited to substantially expand research in ecology in our EEOB Department at UCR. Please Repost and share widely! aprecruit.ucr.edu/JPF01983
aprecruit.ucr.edu
Assistant Professor of Ecology
University of California, Riverside is hiring. Apply now!
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Star dust @reinhart-kurt.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Wow, that is a lot of greenwashing bull$#!π 🌍😢. Also sounds a lot like fraud and wondering when lawsuits will begin?
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University of Arizona EEB @uofa-eeb.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
If you are looking for a graduate program in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, please considering joining us in Tucson, AZ! Our deadline is December 2 this year for admission to our Fall 2025 cohort. You can find out more about EEB and applying to our program here: eeb.arizona.edu/graduate/pro...
Saguaros and other Sonoran Desert plans stand in front of a purple and gray sky with a column of monsoon rain and rainbow in the distance.
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