Andrew Hipp
Plant systematist, herbarium director, naturalist, in the Chicago suburbs; posts reflect my views, not my employer's.
Recent book: Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species & the Tree of Life
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chic…
- An enjoyable lab meeting today, keying out winter twigs (using Harlow's Fruit Key and Twig Key, same one we all used in dendrology at one time...). Led by postdoc Rebekah Mohn in @mortonarboretum.bsky.social East Woods and oak collection.
- Register for the Smithsonian's National Botanical Symposium, “American Botany: 250 years of Discovery” 29 May '26. I'll be speaking on American oaks, w/ several greats: @barbarathiers.bsky.social, Caroline Strömberg, Wes Knapp, & Rose Bear Don't Walk. Join us! naturalhistory.si.edu/research/bot...
- Remnant of a burned red oak. @mortonarboretum.bsky.social east woods this morning
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- Sometimes the story begins with the epilogue. Avenue of mysteries, John Irving
- Almost sunrise, Downers Grove this morning.
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- One of the thousands of artful historical interpretations in May T. Watts' Reading the Landscape: An Adventure in Ecology. Osage orange --> barbed wire
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- Shifting prairie-forest ecotone over the course of the holocene. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- With a lot of looking and pondering and comparing photos, I'm thinking this is striped skunk... anyone out there have thoughts on this? No clearer tracks that I could find. Lyman Woods (Dupage Co., IL) yesterday afternoon.
- Snowy forest and Peromyscus highway, Lyman Woods this afternoon.
- Although Americans of our day enjoy a material wealth unknown in human history, we sacrificed certain valuable things to attain that distinction. One of these was the unbroken prairie. - Joel Greenberg, Natural History of the Chicago Region
- East Woods @mortonarboretum.bsky.social
- An example setup for herbarium tours. This is a general setup, as we have 8 groups coming today. I've prepared for discussions of taxonomy, floristics, history, and of course the basic: What is an herbarium? Herbaria encourage questions in these areas and many more. @mortonarboretum.bsky.social
- This fly dead in exactly this pose when I arrived at @mortonarboretum.bsky.social herbarium this morning.
- The human mind, we can all agree, traffics in generalities, abstractions, and categories. Another way to say this is that form is central to human thought. -- Eduardo Kohn, How Forests Think
- Snow, East Woods, @mortonarboretum.bsky.social this evening.
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- why we need botany departments more than ever:
- Magnificent street corner oak, Madison, Wisconsin this afternoon.
- Java Cat coffee, Madison, Wisconsin
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- This work by @usa-npn.bsky.social @theresacrimmins.bsky.social strengthens the natural history community and builds our knowledge of organisms' responses to environment. It is an outstanding resource to scientists, educators, naturalists, and enthusiasts of all stripes. And we can all contribute!
- Flecks of snow on a red oak, flocks of ice crystals on St. Joseph Creek.
- There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into those shadows. [1/4]
- What times are these, in which A conversation about trees is almost a crime For in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing -- Bertolt Brecht, To those who come after (An Die Nachegeborenen)
- DHS "initially blocked state agents from examining the scene of the shooting, said Drew Evans, the bureau’s superintendent. Minnesota officials were also blocked from accessing evidence and pursuing an investigation into Ms. Good’s death." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/u...
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- St. Joseph Creek flowing under the ice this afternoon, Maple Grove Forest Preserve.
- waiting on delayed flight out of DTW... Miles in the Sky comes to mind. One to get you through such times: www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6eZ...
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- It's been an hour, and the carillon is still playing. Who is up there playing? Who is listening? How many of us are hearing and thinking about these same notes separately in our rooms on this freezing night? Are the crows still flocking? What a strange and beautiful gift.
- Carillon playing while crows flock. University of Michigan campus this evening.
- One of my favorite species, lurking in the indets: Quercus miquihuanensis, endemic to the region right around the town of the same name.
- University of Michigan herbarium, visiting to work on their excellent collection of Mexican oaks and to give a couple of seminars. It's a joy to be back in this herbarium after many years.
- Sun dogs this morning, 8:30 over @mortonarboretum.bsky.social Meadow Lake.
- An excellent piece by a friend on the Broadview Detention Center protests: www.christiancentury.org/features/dhs...
- Interested in bur oak ecology and evolution? Thursday I'll be giving a departmental seminar in University of Michigan EEB on our collaborative NSF Dimensions of Biodiversity work on bur oak variation and gall wasp and fungal symbionts... join us if you can! lsa.umich.edu/herbarium/ne...
- Michigan friends! I'll speaking at the University of Michigan #herbarium this Friday about oak species, including historical studies and our genomic work on the eastern North American white oak syngameon. Join us if you can. lsa.umich.edu/herbarium/ne...
- Forest on top of the moraine, mouse tracks in the prairie. @mortonarboretum.bsky.social this morning.
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