Jeff Bezos fucking stole half of the Titanic without telling anyone, and the media freaked out because half the Titanic mysteriously disappeared and then a month later it popped up on Jeff Bezos’s lawn and he threw a party inside it.

isn’t this just the plot of despicable me

y'all ever reach the end of google

I'm starting to gain insight into why people turn into conspiracy theorists. Some topics are so totally neglected that it looks like they were intentionally and maliciously erased, instead of falling victim to arbitrary lack of interest.

I think it's a vicious cycle; when people don't know something exists, they're not curious about it. Also, people use conceptual categories to think about things, and when a topic falls between or outside of conceptual categories, it can end up totally omitted from our awareness even though it very much exists and is important.

This post is about native bamboo in the United States and the fact that miles-wide tracts of the American Southeast used to be covered in bamboo forests

@icannotgetoverbirds It already is a maddening, bizarre research hole that I have been down for the past few weeks.

Basically, I learned that we have native bamboo, that it once formed an ecosystem called the canebrake that is now critically endangered. The Southeastern USA used to be full of these bamboo thickets that could stretch for miles, but now the bamboo only exists in isolated patches

And THEN.

I realized that there is a little fragment of a canebrake literally in my neighborhood.

HI I AM NOW OBSESSED WITH THIS.

I did not realize the significance until I showed a picture to the ecologist where i work and his reaction was "Whoa! That is BIG."

Apparently extant stands of river cane are mostly just...little sparse thickety patches in forest undergrowth. This patch is about a quarter acre monotypic stand, and about ten years old.

I dive down the Research Hole(tm). Everything new I learn is wilder. Giant river cane mainly reproduces asexually. It only flowers every few decades and the entire clonal colony often dies after it flowers. Seeds often aren't viable.

It's barely been studied enough to determine its ecological significance, but there are five butterfly species and SEVEN moth species dependent on river cane. Many of these should probably be listed as endangered but there's not enough research

There's a species of CRITICALLY ENDANGERED PITCHER PLANT found in canebrakes that only still remains in TWO SPECIFIC COUNTIES IN ALABAMA

Some gardening websites list its height as "over 6 feet" "Over 10 feet" There are living stands that are 30+ feet tall, historical records of it being over 40 feet tall or taller. COLONIAL WRITINGS TALK ABOUT CANES "AS THICK AS A MAN'S THIGH."

The interval between flowering is anyone's guess, and WHY it happens when it does is also anyone's guess. Some say 40-50 years, but there are records of it blooming in as little time as 3-15 years.

It is a miracle plant for filtering pollution. It absorbs 99% of groundwater nitrate contaminants. NINETY NINE PERCENT. It is also so ridiculously useful that it was a staple of Native American material culture everywhere it grew. Baskets! Fishing poles! Beds! Flutes! Mats! Blowguns! Arrows! You name it! You can even eat the young shoots and the seeds.

I took these pictures myself. This stuff in the bottom photo is ten feet tall if it's an inch.

Arundinaria itself is not currently listed as endangered, but I'm growing more and more convinced that it should be. The reports of seeds being usually unviable could suggest very low genetic diversity. You see, it grows in clonal colonies; every cane you see in that photo is probably a clone. The Southern Illinois University research project on it identified 140 individual sites in the surrounding region where it grows.

The question is, are those sites clonal colonies? If so, that's 140 individual PLANTS.

Also, the consistent low estimates of the size Arundinaria gigantea attains (6 feet?? really??) suggests that colonies either aren't living long enough to reach mature size or aren't healthy enough to grow as big as they are supposed to. I doubt we have any clue whatsoever about how its flowers are pollinated. We need to do some research IMMEDIATELY about how much genetic diversity remains in existing populations.

Wow this post is getting a lot of notes.

I think i should make this follow-up clarification: Just because we have a native bamboo species doesn't mean ALL bamboo you find in North America is native.

1. Arundinaria is found in the Southeast, no further north than Ohio and no farther west than East Texas—if you are outside that area, it's almost certainly not a native species
2. From looking through iNaturalist, Arundinaria that is taller than 10 feet or so is exceedingly rare. The vast majority of surviving plants are twiggy little things, very mistakable for willow, in the understory of forests. Bamboo that is 20-30 feet tall could be Arundinaria but likely isn't, especially if you are in a more urban area.
3. Most observations of it are in the middle of nowhere. If you live in a city it's 99% likely some asian bamboo or other
4. Arundinaria doesn't grow super fast—from what i've seen first-year canes are twigs 3 feet tall at most. It takes a long, long time to get tall

Bamboo that was planted by a person in a neighborhood is almost certainly invasive Asian bamboo. People have propagated Arundinaria successfully, but you would need to be a highly knowledgeable individual with access to a wild stand and the interest in propagating it yourself.

In rural areas of Alabama and North Carolina, yeah, that's reasonably likely to be native; in California, no that's gonna be an exotic plant.

Basically, this stuff survives in places that have been totally ignored and neglected for a decade or more, and most examples of it are so tiny and scruffy it doesn't look like bamboo.

More pictures of my canebrake.

Research update:

I've found 4ish conservation projects that focus on or heavily include river cane. The Cherokee nation is deeply involved in conservation efforts and has done the lion's share of the work to bring it back.

Propagation via sections of rhizomes, or by just fully transplanting clumps of cane, seems to be the move, though there's at least one guy that grows it from seed.

Canebrakes supposedly once covered 10 million acres of the United States, so it's crazy that there's so little out there, but I have already contacted one person at a nature preserve close to me, I'm going to try to launch some kind of restoration project where I work, and I have more people to try contacting.

I think I've worked out (part of the reason) why there's been such a huge uptick in folks who don't reblog things on here.

This post has like 14k notes right now, and the tags and comments and reblogs are FULL of people who didn't know about fast-reblog, and -- you guys have been slow-reblogging this whole time!?!??!?!?

In the interests of a) making your lives easier, and b) encouraging you to reblog posts, which is what keeps this site alive, here's how you fast-reblog:

• On mobile: press and hold the reblog button. Your blog icon will appear. If you have sideblogs, all of the different icons will appear. Drag to whichever blog you want to reblog to, and release. Job done.
• On desktop: hold down the E key and click reblog. Job done.

You're welcome. Now get reblogging.

you ever take off your noise cancelling headphones and sounds are like, sounds, so you put your noise cancelling headphones back on

I know these tags were a joke but speaking for autistics everywhere, sound has done so much. TOO much. It deserves to be cancelled

last night I had a dream that there was a tumblr update and the only thing it changed was that for two minutes straight you could sprinkle shredded cheese on other blogs and their posts, and everyone's dashboard was just pandemonium as everyone cheesed each other. two minutes of abominable amounts of shredded cheese raining from the dash. tumblr at its finest. get cheesed

Get cheesed, followers.

so stupid when i get some eccentric item of clothing and ppl are like "ok but where are you gonna wear it?" like. the grocery store? you think i won't wear the demonia riots to the dmv? "they're club shoes" that's only exclusive if you're a pussy

"where would you wear 6inch platforms?" fucking Out id wear them Out what do you mean where

When i was 20 i had 6 inch Swears & i wore them literally EVERYWHERE. i wore a violet satin ballgown to class for like an entire 30% of my freshman year. just wear shit wherever, death is inevitable and social restrictions are fake

someone posted this on twitter this morning

correct 7/11 etiquette

coming home after a long and difficult shift at the disease factory

i’m joining the war on diseases on the side of the diseases

things I know about brazil:

• jungle
• jesus statue

The Jesus is statue is in Rio, you uneducated swine 

how are you a fan of the comic about countries sucking each other off and fail geography this bad

yall are a little too good at replicating the old tumblr fandom posts please stop i feel like a veteran on the fourth of july

do u ever speak and hear ur own accent come out really strong and have a moment like "oh fuck, i really sound like that"