Trekking a curious path via Wikipedia, or: Wikichain.

[Gleb Gamow]

Shrubland, scrubland, scrub or brush is a plant community characterised by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes.

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


Trientalis latifolia (Broadleaf Starflower) is a perennial herbaceous plant of the ground layer of forests in western North America.

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[Gleb Gamow]

Others form the main vegetation of many stable habitats, occurring for example in the ground layer of forests, or in naturally open habitats such as meadow, salt marsh or desert.

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


Wildflower meadow

[Gleb Gamow]

They often host a multitude of wildlife, providing areas for courtship displays, nesting, gathering food or sometimes sheltering if the vegetation is high enough.

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


Male peacock spider, Maratus volans, courtship display

[Gleb Gamow]

If a female chooses more than one male, then sperm competition comes into play.

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


Male dunnocks (Prunella modularis) peck at the female's cloaca, removing sperm of previous mates.

[Gleb Gamow]

Bumblebee mating plugs, in addition to providing a physical barrier to further copulations, contain linoleic acid, which reduces re-mating tendencies of females.

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


Beatrix Potter called Babbity Bumble a "bumble bee" in The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse, 1910.

[Gleb Gamow]

European bumblebees have been introduced to New Zealand and Tasmania.

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


Although Tasmanian devils are nocturnal, they like to rest in the sun. Scarring from fighting is visible next to this devil's left eye.

[Gleb Gamow]

Tasmania has extremely diverse vegetation, from the heavily grazed grassland of the dry Midlands to the tall evergreen eucalypt forest, alpine heathlands and large areas of cool temperate rainforests and moorlands in the rest of the state.

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


White Mountain, an alpine environment at 4,300 metres (14,000 ft) in California

[Gleb Gamow]

As the altitude increases, the main form of precipitation becomes snow and the winds increase.

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


Snow on trees, Germany.

[Gleb Gamow]

Initial attempts to find identical snowflakes by photographing thousands their images under a microscope from 1885 onward by Wilson Alwyn Bentley found the wide variety of snowflakes we know about today

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


Color photography was possible long before Kodachrome, as this 1903 portrait by Sarah Angelina Acland demonstrates, but in its earliest years the need for special equipment, long exposures and complicated printing processes made it extremely rare.

[Gleb Gamow]

Long before the first photographs were made, Chinese philosopher Mo Di and Greek mathematicians Aristotle and Euclid described a pinhole camera in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.

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


One of the oldest surviving fragments of Euclid's Elements, found at Oxyrhynchus and dated to circa AD 100 (P. Oxy. 29). The diagram accompanies Book II, Proposition 5.

[Gleb Gamow]

Proclus later retells a story that, when Ptolemy I asked if there was a shorter path to learning geometry than Euclid's Elements, "Euclid replied there is no royal road to geometry."

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


The taking of Jerusalem by Ptolemy Soter ca. 320 BC, by Jean Fouquet.

[Gleb Gamow]

This account is generally accepted by modern scholars, although the earliest datable mention of it is from coins issued by Ptolemy II in 263 BC.

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


Nalanda, ancient center of higher learning in Bihar, India from 427 to 1197

[Gleb Gamow]

The sacred space, dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena, had formerly been an olive grove, hence the expression "the groves of Academe."

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


Olive tree in Bar, Montenegro that is over 2,000 years old

[Gleb Gamow]

Rabbits eat the bark of olive trees and can do considerable damage, especially to young trees.

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


Outdoor entrance to a rabbit burrow

[Gleb Gamow]

The fur is most commonly long and soft, with colors such as shades of brown, gray, and buff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buff_(colour)


General Washington wearing The Buff and Blue

[Gleb Gamow]

The funnels of the RMS Titanic and all other ships of the White Star Line were designated to be "buff with a black top" in order to indicate their ownership.

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


Copy after Merry-Joseph Blondel of the neoclassical oil painting La Circassienne au Bain; the most highly valued single item of cargo lost on the Titanic.

[Gleb Gamow]

The plates were laid in a clinkered (overlapping) fashion from the keel to the bilge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinker_(boat_building)


Clinkered prow of the Viking Oseberg ship

[Gleb Gamow]

A head is formed by clenching it over a washer in a swage plate.

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


A selection of blacksmithing swages.

[Gleb Gamow]

Swaging is normally the method of choice for precious metals since there is no loss of material in the process.

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


1 oz Vienna Philharmonic gold coin

[Gleb Gamow]

The statue known as Eros atop the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain (1885–1893) in London's Piccadilly Circus is also of cast aluminium.

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


Piccadilly Circus in 1949