iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 20h

New Zealand has a single (doubtfully) native species of #Pelargonium (#Geraniaceae), shared with Australia. The flowers are much smaller than ccultivated Pelargonium (often called geraniums). #stereo (instructions in ALT) #3D #flower 🌱🇳🇿

A small mauve flower (6 mm across). The two upper petals are larger and have dark purple markings. The four anthers have orange pollen, some of which is also on the five red stigmas. In the background are some hairy buds of other flowers.
Instructions: To view this pair of photographs in stereo, you need to make your left eye look at the left photo while your right eye looks at the right photo. On screen, where the photos are back-lit, a simple physical barrier (a piece of cardboard or two cardboard tubes) should do it. This prevents your left eye from seeing the right picture and vice versa. Making the pictures small (~75 mm each) helps, because your eyes don’t need to diverge so far. If you’re long-sighted you’ll be further away from the screen, which makes it harder, so wear your reading glasses (cheap high-powered reading glasses can really help: look for 6.0 diopter, but anything over 4.0 really makes it easier).
Another trick is to start very close to the images (again, for this they must be small). They’ll be out of focus, but you should be able to find an obvious feature or bright spot to concentrate on. Bring the two images together as one and then relax and slowly move away from the photos, keeping the two images united, until they come into focus.
Otherwise, it’s pretty easy for most people with a stereo pair viewer like the one in my book (see my pinned post) or the LiteOWL from the London Stereoscopic Company. A few people still won’t be able to see the stereo effect.
Regardless of the method you use, when each eye is looking at the correct image, your brain will be fooled into thinking you’re looking at a three dimensional object and will construct the 3D illusion.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 23/10/2026

Ah. The hayfever season just launched too. Not such a success round here.

A fluffy branching flower head of cocksfoot grass, hundreds of tiny green florets with pinkish bracts and yellowish anthers.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 13/10/2026

Indeed. (Stereo pair: 3D viewing instructiions in ALT)

Stereo pair of gorse flower. A yellow flower with dark green prickles behind. The lower petals project forward while the upper one – the standard or flag petal – is upright at the back.
To view in 3D, use a viewer like the one in my book, use the "magic eye" technique, or use a sheet of cardboard or a couple of tubes to block the left picture from your right eye's vision and vice versa.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 10/10/2026

Moss spore capsules usually have 1 or 2 rings of peristome teeth around their open mouth. In Tortula muralis, the teeth are long & spirally twisted to form a slender tube that twists & untwists in response to humidity changes. This peristome is 1.4 mm long. Stereo pair; viewing instructions in ALT.

An orange-brown tube of spiralled threads, open at the top where the threads are unravelling and un-twisting to release spores. A few tiny pale green spores are visible.
To view this side-by-side stereo pair in 3D, use the viewer from my book, or try to look at the left photo with your left eye and the right photo with your right eye. If you can do Magic Eye, it's the same technique. Cardboard tubes might help and keeping the picture small certainly makes it easier.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 04/10/2026

Gelsemium sempervirens is a beautiful and scented, but toxic, vine (#Gelsemiaceae) flowering now in Aotearoa. The flower is 32 mm across. Stereo pair; viewing instructions in ALT.

A trumpet-shaped yellow flower with five corolla lobes and style much longer than the stamens. Deep in the tube, 5 small pockets contain glistening nectar.
To view this side-by-side stereo pair in 3D, use the viewer from my book, or try to look at the left photo with your left eye and the right photo with your right eye. Cardboard tubes might help and keeping the picture small certainly makes it easier.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 25/09/2026

Tiny #flower of Crassula tillaea, naturalised in New Zealand since about 2000. This is a stereo pair (viewing instructions in ALT). The flower is about 2 mm across and has three of each type of flower part. #botany #weed 🌱🇳🇿

A tiny green flower. It's 2 mm across and has three triangular green sepals, three very small white petals, three minuscule stamens, and three small green carpels, each with two ovules.
To view this side-by-side stereo pair in 3D, use the viewer from my book, or try to look at the left photo with your left eye and the right photo with your right eye. Cardboard tubes might help and keeping the picture small certainly makes it easier.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 21/09/2026

Quote this with a picture of the aircraft you'll accept as a bribe.

Black and white photo of Avro Vulcan nuclear strike bomber taking off. It has a huge delta wing and dirty exhaust.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 21/09/2026

Mercury Bay weed, Dichondra repens (#Convolvulaceae), flowering now in the garden, 6.5 mm across. Lots of nectar and extrorse anthers suggests at least a mixed mating system. #flowers 🌱🇳🇿 #botany

Small green flowers, 6.5 mm diameter. Five broad green hairy sepals; five narrower and paler petals about the same length; five small stamens; two styles, each with a rounded stigma. Stereo pair: for 3D viewing try to look at the right picture with the right eye and the left picture with the left eye, or use a stereopticon viewer like the one in my book. It's easier if you reduce the size so each frame is about 60 mm wide.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 18/09/2026

Fixed the broken spine on my Dad’s thesis; good for another 90 years now. #architecture #Liverpool #bookbinding.

A thin black covered book with gold lettering: Liverpool School of Architecture. remodelling of Aintree Racecourse Livepool (sic.) A P Garnock-Jones. 1937.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 15/09/2026

Vale George Gibbs, entomologist, naturalist, biogeographer, and kind and tolerant colleague.

The cover of George’s groundbreaking book Ghosts of Gondwana. It features New Zealand’s endemic and unusual plants and animals.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 21/08/2026

Stereo pair photo of New Zealand native Pittosporum cornifolium, a female flower (3D viewing instructions in ALT). This time of year there's a lot of pine pollen about and I had to clean this up. #flower #botany 🌱🇳🇿

A small wine-red tubular flower with 5 erect tapering petals that spread at their tips; the 5 narrow pale green sepals are sub-erect.
Stereo viewing: use a viewer like the one in my book, or try to relax your eyes to the right eye looks at the right frame while the left eye looks at the left frame. On screen, a couple of cardboard tubes might help or a vertical sheet of paper between your nose and the white line between the two frames, to block each eye from seeing the wrong picture.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 11/08/2026

Ōtepoti First Church. Stereo pair, see ALT for instructions.

An ornate gothic church with gnarly tree branches in the foreground. Stereo pair. To view in stereo, use a viewer like the one in my book, or try to make your right eye look at the right hand picture while the left eye looks at the left picture. It helps to start really close, concentrating on a feature like the steeple, then move away until it comes into focus.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 04/08/2026

My partner took this between Waipara and Amberley on state highway 1 this morning.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 01/08/2026

It’s only August 1st but Myosotis brevis is in full flower! Finger tip for scale. This is in a pot in the garden.

A couple of hairy leaves and a tiny cream flower about 1 mm across. Also a small pebble and my finger tip.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 29/07/2026

Delighted to see Duncan Munro's brilliant design work on my book recognised in the short list of the PANZ Book Design Awards.

The cover of my book He Puāwai, a natural history of New Zealand flowers. The cover is black, with five rows of five flowers in shades of white, pink, orange, red, yellow, purple, and green.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 17/07/2026

There’s another in Queensland and even one in Mali. #eqnz.

A map of west Africa showing a felt report from Mali for the Fiordland earthquake

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 01/07/2026

My parcel from China arrived. It took 2 weeks from order to delivery and tracked postage was NZ$5.30. Here's what NZ Post would charge to send it back.

Three postage options for a small item from NZ to China: Economy $25, Courier $86; Express $181. From China to New Zealand cost $5:30.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 29/06/2026

The Traveller by @andreawulf.bsky.social I have to confess I haven’t read it yet but I will soon. I’ve spent many hours trying to document and select types for Forster’s plant names, confused because we have to apply the Code to names published and used long before it was invented.

Screen grab for a review of the traveller by Andrea Wulf. The picture is an engraving of Forster at work on his botanical collections.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 29/06/2026

Anyway this is the house. It’s where we grew up in Tawa and it was designed by my Dad.

A white plastic model of a modest 3-bedroom suburban house. It’s one story and has a pitched roof.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 21/06/2026

3D aerial photo of Delaware Bay near Nelson, for International #Stereoscopy Day (instructions in ALT). @clintfern.bsky.social maybe your house is there somewhere? @brianmayarchstereo.bsky.social

Pepin island is connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land that closes Delware Bay behind. Forested hills in the background and blue sea of Tasman Bay in front.
INSTRUCTIONS: To view in 3D, try to trick your eyes so the right eye looks at the right picture and the left eye looks at the left. On screen, when they are backlit, a couple of cardboard tobes will help manage which photo each eye is looking at, or even a vertical sheet of paper between the two photos and your nose so that your eyes can't see the wrong picture. Even better, use a viewer like the one in my 3D flowers book or the Lite OWL viewer from London Stereoscopic Co.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 21/06/2026

Bird's nest #fungi for International #Stereoscopy Day. Each "bird's nest" contains smooth egg-like structures that contain spore-producing bodies for dispersal. These "nests" are each a few mm across. @brianmayarchstereo.bsky.social. For viewing instructions, see ALT.

Three hairy bird's nest fungus fruiting bodies on a small piece of bark mulch.
INSTRUCTIONS: To view in 3D, try to trick your eyes so the right eye looks at the right picture and the left eye looks at the left. On screen, when they are backlit, a couple of cardboard tobes will help manage which photo each eye is looking at, or even a vertical sheet of paper between the two photos and your nose so that your eyes can't see the wrong picture. Even better, use a viewer like the one in my 3D flowers book or the Lite OWL viewer from London Stereoscopic Co.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 21/06/2026

Tall oat grass Arrhenatherum elatius flowers for International #Stereoscopy Day. Tall oat grass is a widespread northern hemispehere grass that's often naturalised elsewhere, like New Zealand. @brianmayarchstereo.bsky.social. Viewing instructions in ALT

A grass spiklet with two florets. Each floret has two white feathery stigmas and three long purplish anthers that dangle on very slender stalks.
INSTRUCTIONS: To view in 3D, try to trick your eyes so the right eye looks at the right picture and the left eye looks at the left. On screen, when they are backlit, a couple of cardboard tobes will help manage which photo each eye is looking at, or even a vertical sheet of paper between the two photos and your nose so that your eyes can't see the wrong picture. Even better, use a viewer like the one in my 3D flowers book or the Lite OWL viewer from London Stereoscopic Co.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 21/06/2026

Aurora australis a couple of years ago from our house in Nelson New Zealand, in 3D for International #Stereoscopic Day. Instructions in ALT. @brianmayarchstereo.bsky.social

A bright pink aurora fills the sky behind a hill with houses lit up in the foreground. There are a few clouds silhouetted against the glowing sky.
INSTRUCTIONS: To view in 3D, try to trick your eyes so the right eye looks at the right picture and the left eye looks at the left. On screen, when they are backlit, a couple of cardboard tobes will help manage which photo each eye is looking at, or even a vertical sheet of paper between the two photos and your nose so that your eyes can't see the wrong picture. Even better, use a viewer like the one in my 3D flowers book or the Lite OWL viewer from London Stereoscopic Co.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 21/06/2026

For International #Stereoscopy Day I'm going international. This is Ceanothus, a North American genus (cultivated in New Zealand). Instructions in ALT. @brianmayarchstereo.bsky.social

A small bright blue flower. The five blue sepals form a cup that holds nectar. Five blue and hooded petals are each adjacent to a stamen. In the centre of the flower are three darker blue styles each tipped by a small stigma.
INSTRUCTIONS: To view in 3D, try to trick your eyes so the right eye looks at the right picture and the left eye looks at the left. On screen, when they are backlit, a couple of cardboard tobes will help manage which photo each eye is looking at, or even a vertical sheet of paper between the two photos and your nose so that your eyes can't see the wrong picture. Even better, use a viewer like the one in my 3D flowers book or the Lite OWL viewer from London Stereoscopic Co.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 20/06/2026

For International #Stereoscopy Day, here's a sweet violet flower. Viewing instructions in ALT. @brianmayarchstereo.bsky.social

A small dark purple flower with five petals. It has orange anther appendages showing in the centre, with a small white patch and radiating darker purple lines on the lower petals. To view in 3D, try to trick your eyes so the right eye looks at the right picture and the left eye looks at the left. On screen, when they are backlit, a couple of cardboard tobes will help manage which photo each eye is looking at, or even a vertical sheet of paper between the two photos and your nose so that your eyes can't see the wrong picture. Even better, use a viewer like the one in my 3D flowers book or the Lite OWL viewer from London Stereoscopic Co.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 13/06/2026

Now I'm sorry this one didn't make it into the book 🥲

Two stereo pair images of maire tawake (Syzygium maire) flowers. The flowers have many white stamens in a dense ring around a nectar cup. A stingle green style emerges from the centre of the flower.
To view in 3D, you need to trick your left eye into looking at the left picture while your right eye looks at the right picture. On screen, where they are back-lit, a pair of cardboard tubes can help. A 3D viewer, like the one in my book, makes it easy.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 05/06/2026

This was last night in Whakatū, but we're still getting heavy rain and it's quite dark. Sound up! 🇳🇿

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 22/05/2026

3d printing a frame for a new design stereoscopic viewer.

The inside of a 3d printer showing a plastic frame for 3d glasses half made.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 19/05/2026

3D view of Taranaki maunga yesterday from Auckland to Nelson flight. Instructions for 3D viewing in ALT.

A conical volcano peak seen from above. There are patches of snow. Valleys radiate out through the forested lowlands. There's a rounded dome inside the main crater and another crater (Fantham's Peak) on the side of the mountain. See in 3D with the viewer from my book or use two cardboard tubes to separate the pictures one for each eye. You might need to make it smaller on screen.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 13/05/2026

I spent the best morning in the herbarium at Auckland Museum.

A massive white stone art deco museum building. Palm trees 🌴 and lawns in the foreground and blue sky above.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 09/05/2026

Domatia are tiny pockets on the undersides of some leaves. They're almost always associated with mites; so biologists think they provide a safe home ("domatium" means little house) for mites that clean leaves of fungal spores. Karamu (Coprosma robusta, Rubiaceae) from New Zealand. Explanation in ALT

A tiny oval pocket (a domatium) in the surface of a leaf is fringed by hairs. It sits in the 45 degree angle between the midrib (right) and a secondary vein. Inside the domatium are some more hairs and some detritus that might be from mites or perhaps fungal hyphae. This domatium is 0.68 mm long.
This is a stereo pair for magic-eye viewing, or use the viewer from my book or London Stereoscopic Company's OWL Lite viewer. On a screen, you can just use two cardboard tubes to force your left eye to look at the left picture and your right eye at the right picture.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 05/05/2026

I found this little weevil inside a Beilscmiedia tawa flower (Lauraceae) in 2004 and just got around to trying to photograph it. I’d like relax it and arrange it better, but it’s so tiny.

A tiny brown weevil 2mm long. Its body and legs are covered in short hairs.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 26/04/2026

I’ve only read a couple of these but I really liked them.

Book cover of Owen Marshall’s selected stories. There’s a green corrugated iron hut in golden tussock with dark hills behind.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 26/04/2026

Thank you for sharing that recipe. It’s as good as it says.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 13/04/2026

@botsocamerica.bsky.social International Plant Appresiation Day comes in the fall in New Zealand, but here's the world's smallest forget-me-not Myosotis brevis #IPAD2026 #PlantingScience #IamaBotanist #FutureBotanists #STEM

A pale yellow forget-me-not flower just 1 mm across. The floral tube is filled by the five anthers and large stigma, all at the same height. Tiny cellular papillae cover the surfaces of the corolla lobes. The surrounding leaves and bracts have tapering hairs about half a millimetre long. Myosotis brevis is a spring annual found on both main islands of New Zealand, in coastal turf and inland frost flats and tarn margins.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 08/04/2026

Not going to be a good day for a lot of people, but better than Cairns on Monday night

A map showing Cyclone Maila just off Cairns Australia, with 90 kt sustained winds around the eye.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 06/04/2026

What I would say to you is, it’s business as usual for us.

Weather map for next weekend showing cyclone Vaianu approaching New Zealand.

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Phil Garnock-Jones @theobrominated.eurosky.social · 04/04/2026

Some of us who remember cyclone Giselle are a bit superstitious about 10th of April.

A large tropical cyclone north of New Zealand shown on a weather map for 10 April 2026.

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