Mark McCaughrean#ReturnToGermany Day 9
“A little fall of rain
Can hardly hurt me now” ☔️
Actually, that was overnight – it’s dry & partly sunny now 🤷♂️🙂
SellaTheChemist@markmccaughrean Oh look! #Superhydrophobic leaf surface. I'm going to show one of those and do some demos with it at Cheltenham Science Festival on Sunday. Aren't they just gorgeous? The hairiness of the surface is integral to the behaviour. What's the plant? I'll be using plume poppies or Alchemilla Mollis (Lady's Mantle).
@sellathechemist Excellent 🙂 I’m not a plant specialist, but will go down later & take a wider photo to see if iNaturalist can identify it for me. There were several different plants with water drops on their leaves this morning, although this one was the winner by far 👍
@sellathechemist Have checked & indeed, it’s Garden Lady’s-Mantle (Alchemilla mollis). And furry it is too 🙂
@markmccaughrean That's the one. It''s an absolutely gorgeous plant, with the little furry things spaced closely enough that the surface tensions causes the water to sit on a series of them, causing the extreme beading .
If you want to impress someone with some basic but important science, take a paper clip that you've rubbed with soap/detergent and touch it gently against one of the drops and see what happens! You're guaranteed a gasp of delight. It's exocharmic chemistry at its best.