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Wildfires Pose Existential Risk to Giant Sequoias
Millions of people travel to California’s redwood forests every year to marvel at the few remaining stands of old-growth trees. In 2022 there are perhaps 25% less trees to admire as so many have...
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Summer 2022: Extreme Heat
Summer is here.Unfortunately Florida rains have been diminished by a massive heat dome that spreads across the southeast. These sunflowers are kept alive only by daily irrigation. Photo: Phillip...
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Russulaceae Mushrooms in Florida
Russulaceae is a large and varied family of fungi that contains over 1,900 species. Some, but not all, of these species are edible, but they are incredibly hard to tell apart from other species, so DO...
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Florida's Forgotten Springs
Tucked into a deep limestone ravine near Mt. Plymouth is Droty Spring. Sublime. . .and completely forgotten.  The spring now has its own road (Droty Spring Road), but there is no maintenance of the...
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Tropical Cinnabar Fungus
Bright orange Tropical Cinnabar Bracket Fungus (Pycnoporus sanguines) is an important actor in the Central Florida ecosystem.  The specimen pictured above has made its home in an oak log that has been...
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What Happened to the 2022 Hurricane Season?
Radar image of Hurricane Dorian approaching FloridaSeptember 3, 2019. Of course Dorian never made it. He stalled for days devastating the bahamas and eventually moved away.It is the Atlantic...
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Horsemint and September in the Florida Garden
2022 had been one of the hottest and driest summers every for East Central Florida until the last week of August. Nine or more inches of rain fell between August 22 and 30. So what can survive this...
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Do Not Visit The World's Tallest Tree!
Thinking of Visiting the World’s Tallest Tree? Think Again.The National Park Service restricted the area around Hyperion, a coast redwood in California's Redwood National Park, after visitors and...
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How to Construct Halloween Scarecrows
My Halloween scarecrow and pumpkinhead creation this year will be constructed from Hurricane Ian debris, and we have a lot of it. Spanish moss is plenty spooky and it was blown down everywhere by the...
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Halloween Scarecrows in the Garden
I toured the Scarecrows in the Garden exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens today. It wasn't quite as exciting as some years in the past. 2014 was my favorite year. These are some of my favorites...
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How To Decorate for Halloween
How to decorate for Halloween, according to spooky season die-hardsReady to take Halloween to the next level? We have advice — and photos — from extreme decorators.Follow Phillip@majikphilBefore you...
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Buying Guide for Halloween 2023
Home Depot makes nearly $4 million in political donations in 2022Before you even think about buying one of these hot-in-2022 werewolfs you have to ask yourself if you want to be contributing to Home...
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Hurricanes and Crusts Fungi
This year two late season hurricanes devastated my woods, killing large oaks and pines. Flooding further reduced the population of trees as many stood in water for weeks that remains high today. In...
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Can Monarch Butterflies Survive Humanity?
Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus plexippus) were once an American institution, as common as fireflies on a summer evening, having been found in backyards across the country for hundreds of years....
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Bitter Cold Air Races Toward Florida
Extremely cold temperatures are forecast for Florida Christmas 2022. Current forecasts show below freezing temperatures in Florida north of a line from about Melbourne to Tampa, with cold reaching as...
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Green Comet
Picture from NASA shows the Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) that was discovered by astronomers at the Zwicky Transient Facility this year in early March. (Dan Bartlett/AFP/Getty Images)See The Green Comet...
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Time to Plant the Watermelons and 'The Infinity Pool'
In Central Florida ts time to plant the watermelons (Citrullus lanatus). This year I've chosen the Bush Sugar Baby Watermelon to start. These hardy melons have a bush-like "vine" so they don't wander...
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Snake Clitoris and Boygenius
Female snakes have clitorises too, a new study finds.The research raises the possibility that the sex lives of snakes are more complicated and diverse than previously understood, researchers report...
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Florida's Largest Flower
The Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) is the largest natural flower found in Florida. Magnolia is an ancient genus of at least 300 flowering plant species. This species appeared before bees...
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Burmese Pythons Migrate North in Florida
This female Burmese python broke the records for her length - 17 feet, 7 inches - and the number of eggs she contained: 87. She was first captured in Everglades National Park by USGS researchers in the...
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Mimosa show how plant 'muscles' work
The Little Leaf Sensitive Plants (Mimosa microphylla, Mimosa pudica) are in bloom again. These are one of my favorite miniature Florida native plants.Follow Phillip@majikphilHOW DO SENSITIVE PLANTS DO...
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Florida Phlox meets the Met Gala
Across the sandhills of the Florida peninsula, in sandy fields and roadside swales, Florida phlox (Phlox floridana) is in full bloom.Follow Phillip@majikphil This native plant is lovely from a...
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Summer Nights in Alaska
 Summer in Anchorage, Alaska is supposed to be cloudy/rainy/cool but we were gifted with relatively warm temperatures (in the 60°s/30°s) and mostly cloudless skies.Located at 61° N Anchorage receives...
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Crocodile Bridge
A large crocodile suns on a muddy sandbar in the Tárcoles RiverPhoto: Phillip LottAlong the busy main highway № 34 ( Carr. Pacifica Fernández Oreamuno), over the River Tárcoles, between the capital of...
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Duckweed
After Hurricane Ian blew threw Florida in the fall of 2022 one of my ponds was full of duckweed that had never been there before.  I’m not sure if it came in in flying debris (we had plenty of that) of...
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