Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Splitting Hairs

It is horrible to realise that one has not only fallen into, but long been buried in the gutter of that intolerable and irritating trend of making puns in healdines and titles.  I hate being such a hippocrite.

Somene needed ot add a photographic account to the net of this wonderful thing that happens in nature called

BIFID  HAIRS


It is a scientifically defined type of hair that is literally split, the forks and "base" often roughly equal. Such observations of which way someone's hair is going is crucially important in botany, especially when in identifying some species.

All that said, I still don't know what this tiny alpine plant (1cm wide) is, growing at Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, USA. (Photographed through a hand-lens)