Pointless late post of the day:

I've said before that once I get past a certain point of the day I just don't feel like attempting to blather. The funny thing is that since I'm working the late shift today and it's just after meal time I should feel like it's my regular time to post. After all, what's the difference between posting just after eating lunch and posting just after eating supper?

A lot, apparently.

My excuse at the moment is a sore knee (yes, it affects my blathering ability. And shut up, world) and the fact that me 'n the sore knee went around the 4 km trail today so we're both tired.

Oh, and it's above 30C out there.

Tired, sore, and sweaty.

AND... I have a headache.

Have I whinged enough yet? Thought so.

On to the pointless photo of the day, then, which features a crab spider of some sort (in scientific terms: Thomisidae, sp. unknown) on a shrubby cinquefoil flower, which my new Plants of Alberta tells me is Dasiphora floribunda. This is a bit confusing to me, because when I was in school and larnin' about them thar plants it was known as Potentilla fruticosa. And for the plant nerds out there: yes, that does mean I'm old.

Shut up.

I'm not afraid to come out there and thwack you young 'uns, you know.

Sorry. It seems that my inner hillbilly granny is coming out to play today. Who knew I even had an inner hillbilly granny?

Remember back in elementary school when they introduced us to scientific binomial nomenclature (Hello, binomial nomenclature. Nomenclature? That sounds so formal. May I call you Nome for short?) and told us how important it was? That because of Nome (heh. I like that) scientists all over the world could refer to plants and animals using the same names, and it wouldn't matter what languages they spoke (the scientists, not the plants and animals)? That the name of a given species always stays the same no matter where in the literature it's mentioned?

Sooo not true when it comes to plant taxonomy.

I know it has to do partly with genetic studies causing rethinking in classification, and partly with international agreement on which synonyms to dump, and partly with which direction the wind was blowing last Friday the Thirteenth (ok, maybe not the last one), but when you're an OLF with a cataloguing fetish it's a little frustrating that the pseudolatin names you've grown to know and love (not really kidding there) change with every new book you buy.

Ah well.

Tired, sore, and headachy, remember? What better excuse to complain about botanical classification?




Yeah, yeah, whatever.