Extraordinary Photo of 1,400-Year-Old Ginkgo Tree Shedding Its Leaves

This old ginkgo tree located at Gu Guanyin Buddhist Temple, in Zhongnan Mountain region of #China. The temple was built in #Tang dynasty in 628, with more than 1,400 years history. It’s said this ginkgo tree is planted by Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong himself.

Each year, during late autumn, this 1,400-year-old #Gingko tree sheds its leaves, forming a thick carpet of vibrant yellow around the temple grounds

Source: vintag.es

Horns of Ammon (Paleontology 🦕)

The horns of Ammon were curling ram horns, used as a symbol of the Egyptian deity Ammon. Because of the visual similarity, they were also associated with the fossils shells of ancient snails and cephalopods, the latter now known as ammonite because of that historical connection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_of_Ammon

#HornsOfAmmon #Amun #Fossils #HornedGods #Paleontology

As the UK shut down it's final Coal burning power station yesterday, I see that XKCD celebrated it with a calculation.

So we burned about 3 inches in depth of the UK's surface between 1853 and 2024 😲

https://xkcd.com/2992/

#xkcd #coal #environment

Preparing some herbarium sheets for display in our new dinosaur gallery. All of these plant groups – a fern, cycad, and horsetails – were around during dinosaur times.

Installation of this new gallery has been a little delayed but we're planning to open in October if all goes to plan.

#NottNatHist #plants #leaves #herbarium #museum #display #ferns #horsetails #cycads #WollatonHall #botany

Update: Thanks to @bbenz and @[email protected] for correcting the ID! This is actually “Pinesap” [Monotropa hypopitys]. Not as uncommon as I thought but still my first time finding. 😀

For as often as I tromp around in the woods I have never found Ghost Pipes THIS color. From what I see online, it’s a rare variant of the usually whitish/pinkish Monotropa uniflora.

One of my favorite discoveries this summer!

#Nature #NewEngland #plants

Really quite impressive thicket of Great Horsetail (Equisetum telmateia) in this railway siding at Three Bridges. Fairly easy to ID even at a distance because it’s biiiig (1 metre tall or more) and has very pale, almost white jointed stems.

#Equisetum #VC13 #WestSussex #Crawley #ferns #horsetails

My 25 years of palaeoart chronology...

In 2005 I painted (acrylic paint on canvas) a second picture of Cretaceous Antarctica for the British Antarctic Survey. I've included the key so you can spot all the different species.

#Art #Painting #PaleoArt #PalaeoArt #SciArt #SciComm #DigitalArt #Illustration #Dinosaurs #Birds #Reptiles #Palaeontology #Paleontology