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Please don't get me wrong. I really like Gretchen Morgenson and Geraldine Fabrikant but I am somewhat disappointed in today's article High-Speed Courts Try to Rush Through Foreclosures, in which they really missed some important "key components".
A few weeks ago our friend at Chink in the Armor said it best in his post Gretchen Swoops for the Kill, and Feints … Twice. He states "Gretchen Moregenson of the New York Times is circling the MERS story. Every once in a while she will seem to make a pass at it but at the last moment she diverts to something else, plucking a nice little morsel but leaving the main dish of MERS behind. She refrains, like everyone else, from coming in for the kill. I know for a fact she knows – from two different sources – but I don't know why she holds her powder."
He continues… "She had two stories this past week just like that."
Again, don't get me wrong, but there are other players just as important as, if not more so, than the Foreclosure Mills, such as MERS, Lender Processing Services, mortgage-backed security trusts, Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae (or GSEs??).
In today's NYT's article Gretchen and Geraldine did, however, manage to get in touch with David J. Stern. Of course, to no one's surprise he "attributed any backdating to sloppiness on the part of paralegals".
I am sure that statement will not sit well with any paralegals working there who are working hard, doing exactly what their supervisors are telling them to do.
I must say the most important statement from this article comes from the Florida Attorney General,… "Thousands of final judgments of foreclosure against Florida homeowners may have been the result of the allegedly improper actions of these law firms," said Mr. McCollum in an interview. "We've had so many complaints that I am confident there is a great deal of fraud here."
My suggestion to any journalist that fine combs this site is to please do your research and, then, write a mind blowing article that will clear the smoke from the mirrors.
Gretchen, when will you finally swoop in for the kill?© 2010-19 FORECLOSURE FRAUD | by DinSFLA. All rights reserved.


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


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The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review refers to Mike Leuzinger as "a superscout." He had been the Pirates' area supervisor for North Texas and Oklahoma since 2004, and last year, he brought in Josh Bell, a top-flight outfield prospect the team had acquired by dangling a $5 million signing bonus. Before joining the Pirates, Leuzinger spent 12 years with the Dodgers, and Matt Kemp was among the players he signed.
But now Leuzinger's had enough, telling the Trib he opted not to renew his contract. Part of it was because the Pirates' refused to grant permission for him to interview for a job with the Yankees. But part of it was, well, the Pirates:
"I was there for eight of those (20 losing seasons)," he said. "It does wear you down. I'm not the only one."
When the season ended, Pirates owner Bob Nutting did say he would re-evaluate "every area of the organization" in the wake of the Pirates' second consecutive late-season swoon. Yet he's since decided not to make any changes at the top of the baseball operations staff, which has been in place for the last five of these 20 straight losing seasons. Because, you know, why fix what's broken?


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Many of the thousands of troops who suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan are at risk of long-term health problems including depression and Alzheimer's-like dementia, but it's impossible to predict how high those risks are, researchers say.
About 22 percent of wounded troops have a brain injury, concluded the prestigious Institute of Medicine — and it urged precise steps for studying how these patients fare years later so chances to help aren't missed.
The Veterans Affairs Department, which requested the report, and the Pentagon already are taking some of the recommended steps. But a report out Thursday highlights the urgency.
By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
"I don't think we really knew how big a hole in scientific knowledge there is about blast-induced brain injuries," said Dr. George Rutherford of the University of California, San Francisco, the report's lead researcher.
Traumatic brain injury, or TBI, is a signature injury of the Iraq war. Most do not involve penetrating head wounds but damage hidden inside the skull caused by an explosion's pressure wave. It can range from a mild concussion to severe injury. And because symptoms may not be immediately apparent, troops may not seek care.
"If you have a gunshot wound to some specific part of your brain, I can tell you the consequences," Rutherford said. But with blast concussions, it's not even possible to say "if you have six of these, are you six times more likely to have something bad happen to you than if you've had one?"
Returning soldiers have reported headaches, dizziness, memory loss, confusion, irritability, insomnia and depression. The military has said most of the TBI-injured troops recover with treatment.
"There's clearly a whole bunch of people who have mild TBI who have no negative outcomes," Rutherford agreed.
PTSD, psychological health and traumatic brain injuries
Read the rest:


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Former Houston lawmaker Kyle Janek, an anesthesiologist, will take over leadership of the Health and Human Services Commission from the retiring Tom Suehs.
Gov. Rick Perry on Monday appointed Janek, of Austin, as executive commissioner effective Sept. 1.
The new commissioner will face no shortage of challenges.
Just for starters, there's implementation of the new health care law in the face of Gov. Rick Perry's declaration that the state won't expand Medicaid; the need for the Legislature to come up with billions of dollars early next year to fully fund Medicaid for this fiscal cycle; and an ongoing lawsuit by Planned Parenthood challenging the state's decision to exclude it from receiving Women's Health Program Funding.
"Texas, like the rest of the country, is headed into a period of the most significant changes in health care in our history," Perry said in a statement announcing the appointment.
Janek, who served in the House and then the Senate in 1995-2008, is director of anesthesia services at Lakeway Regional Medical Center.
Perry also announced that Chris Traylor of Austin will be chief deputy commissioner. Traylor has been commissioner of the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services since 2010.
Perry noted they will oversee the Medicaid program in Texas and five health and human services agencies with more than 55,000 employees and a combined annual budget topping $30 million.


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Michael Jackson's doctor barred from practicing in Texas
Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Michael Jackson's death, finally has been formally barred from practicing medicine in Texas.
The Texas Medical Board Friday suspended Murray's license, nearly three years after the death of the pop singer. Murray, currently serving a four-year jail sentence, administered an overdose of the anesthetic propofol that killed Jackson in June 2009.
"This achieves the same effect as license revocation," said Leigh Hopper, board spokeswoman.
Murray is currently asking a California judge to release him from jail pending appeal of the case. His lawyer said Murray knows he cannot work as a doctor but would find other employment in California to help support his seven children, according to the Associated Press. A hearing on the motion is set for Feb. 24.
Prior to Jackson's death, Murray worked a few days a month in Acres Homes, flying in from his primary practice in Las Vegas. He opened the cardiology practice in the impoverished north Houston area in his late father's honor in 2006, then left in the spring of 2009 to become Jackson's personal doctor.
He returned to Acres Homes to see patients, sporadically, after Jackson's death, beginning in late 2009 and as recently as summer 2011.
The medical board didn't need to seek an emergency suspension after Murray's November conviction because he's incarcerated and not a threat to Texas patients, Hopper said.
The medical board order noted the state saved "money and resources" because Murray cooperated in the matter. It called such cooperation a mitigating factor in determining the appropriate sanction.
The license suspension is the second action the Texas Medical Board has taken against Murray in the aftermath of Jackson's death. In 2010, about five months after he resumed seeing patients in Acres Homes, the medical board prohibited him from administering propofol.
That action, like Friday's license suspension, followed judicial sanction in California.
Officials at the Texas Medical Board suggested at the time it was appropriate to let California take the lead because that was where the standard of care issue took place and because the state already was devoting resources to the investigation.
Under sentencing guidelines, Murray is expected to serve no more than half of his sentence.
Murray's license will remain suspended until superseded by a subsequent order of the Texas Medical Board, the order says.


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'Total Recall' Trailer Teaser Promises Guns, Explosions
Joel Kinnaman's excitement over having a translucent visor has us today staring squarely into RoboCop's newly-visible eyes, but let's not forget that there's another Paul Verhoeven sci-fi-satire remake on the way and much nearer to theaters. Underworld director Len Wiseman has already remade Total Recall with Colin Farrell in the lead, and has it prepped for an August release. A full trailer for the film is expected on Sunday, but if you can't wait, here's a 30-second teaser that will basically just assure you, don't worry, Len Wiseman made sure to put some guns and explosions in this thing. He knows what matters!
Read More: teaser, total recall, trailer


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Events for July 21, 2017
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*Events listed on the this website may change due to an unfavorable conditions and/or unforeseeable events. Therefore, dates and times may be subject to change, please call the specific event coordinator to verify calendar information.


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PANAMA CITY� Gulf Coast State College gets top-turkey honors.
PANAMA CITY� Gulf Coast State College gets top-turkey honors.
The watchdog group Florida TaxWatch released its annual list of �turkeys� Thursday, naming 107 projects totaling $106.8 million, in the state budget, which, it says, didn�t receive �proper opportunity for public review and debate.�
The group wants Gov. Rick Scott to consider line-item vetoing the projects, including three in Bay County that total $15.1 million. Scott has until May 24 to make those decisions and act on the budget.
GCSC took the top-dollar spot with $14 million for its STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) building. The lion�s share of the funding was added in the budget conference, where the House and Senate merge their respective spending plans into one bill, after which it�s passed and sent to the governor.
Initially the House and the governor�s budget didn�t include any money for the STEM building and the Senate budget only included $300,000.
That changed in conference, when the amount grew to $14 million. Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, was the driving force behind making that happen.
On Thursday, Gaetz was defiant in the face of TaxWatch�s criticism, releasing a caustic statement that, among other jabs, said the group is �irrelevant 364 days a year.�
Gaetz said TaxWatch is built on the �unconstitutional perversion� that if state agencies don�t recommend a spending project, it shouldn�t be considered in conference.
�This is an arrogance of the elite who spend too much time in Tallahassee and Washington listening to the echoes of their own invented wisdom and thinking they're hearing the voice of God,� he wrote.
Gaetz added, �In most cases, those who put together this list couldn�t find these projects on a map and haven't put five minutes into finding out anything about them.�
Gaetz said adding new spending during conference is a time-honored tradition.
�It is a practice that goes back to the founding of the American republic � that budget items are added in conference between the House and the Senate,� he said, noting the concept applies to state legislatures.
Gaetz said TaxWatch didn�t participate in the budget process by offering testimony.
He said �serious people� with �serious concerns� would have spoken at the conference meetings, explaining why projects should or should not have received money.
Gaetz also said all proposed spending items must be introduced at a publicly noticed open meeting, where testimony is �welcomed.� He said introducing these spending items in conference �absolutely� gives them a proper public airing.
But TaxWatch disagrees.
�There really isn�t much testimony in the conference committee,� said Kurt Wenner, the group�s vice president, adding, �(The meetings) are usually very short and there�s seldom any public testimony, and even less discussion among members.�
Wenner�s response to Gaetz� lack-of-testimony critique was simple. He said the Legislature already knows TaxWatch is dead-set against introducing new projects in conference, so it�s unnecessary to reiterate its views.
Besides it�s not where the real decisions are made, Wenner said.
�The conference meetings are open to the public, but if you�ve ever been to one there�s not really any debate or discussion. It�s a reading of the various offers back-and-forth,� Wenner said. �And it�s basically coming back and saying what�s been decided behind closed doors.�
TaxWatch�s biggest problem is with spending projects naming a specific recipient or locality, added in conference, which never passed through the initial committee budget process.
Wenner said the late-add projects might not make the budget if they went through the full process.
�When they�re put in, in conference, there is no chance for them to be removed. No one can really object to them � there is no opportunity to vote (them) up-and-down,� he said, noting all checks and balances �go out the window.�
Wenner also responded to Gaetz� 364-day-a-year irrelavance crack.
�We issue reports all year long. We�ve been very successful in our history in getting recommendations enacted. We have a cost-savings task force that�s had several billion dollars in cost savings enacted over the years.
�So we work 365 days a year and we believe we�re relevant all year,� he said.
Wenner also said Gaetz should have read the report and reviewed its criteria before issuing a statement making �incorrect and misguided assertions� about it.
Patronis� support
Another turkey-labeled project is $500,000 for the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport�s (ECP) crosswind runway. It was not added to the budget until the conference.
�I helped get it in,� said Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Panama City, noting it�s the Federal Aviation Administration�s and the state transportation agency�stop priority for ECP.
Patronis said there is urgency to build this �cautionary alternative runway,� and said it will require local matching dollars.
Another project deemed a turkey is $610,000 for the Bay County Health Department�s BayCare program, a health-care program for low income residents. Patronis wasn�t so keen on the program, which also was added in conference. He said it was likely funded at Gaetz� request.
Patronis also defended the $14 million for GCSC, saying the STEM building was necessary because some learning must take place in an educational facility, with lab workstations and proper teacher oversight.
�In STEM, you can�t have an Internet-based lab. � Not everything can be done via distance learning, and this particular facility was long overdue,� he said.
Patronis understood the turkey concerns, but said in recent years the budget process has become �more transparent than it�s ever been before.�
�I think that the public does have the opportunity to engage and be a part of the process,� he said.
Patronis also said the projects aren�t �dreamt up out of thin air at the last minute.� He said the BayCare program, the ECP runway project and the STEM building were discussed long before this year�s budget conference.
�I think all of these issues have been public enough over the years; you know, we just had an opportunity to act upon them,� Patronis said.
Meanwhile, Gaetz dismissed the STEM building topping the turkey list.
�If the replacing this building cost $6 million, then there would have been a smaller amount in the budget; if replacing the building would have cost more money, then more money would have been in the budget,� he said. �It�s very hard to build (only) part of a building.�
But the new building will cost much more than the $14 million appropriation. In April, GCSC President Jim Kerley said the current estimate is $23 million. He was unsure where the other $9 million would come from and even suggested next year�s legislative session as a funding source.


text: Bluegrass singer and songwriter Randall Hylton died Monday morning (March 19) at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville of an aneurysm. He was 56. He had been hospitalized at another area medical center for a stroke and was due to be operated on today (March 20). Born Jan. 8, 1945, in southwestern Virginia, Hylton came to Nashville in 1973. Although he made some efforts to organize a bluegrass band, he ultimately decided to perform as a soloist, mixing his serious material with parodies and impressions. His published catalog included more than 225 songs, the most familiar of which were "Room at the Top of the Stairs," "Slippers With Wings" and "Hallelujah Turnpike." Among those who recorded his songs were the Lewis Family (which reportedly cut 70 of them), Ralph Stanley, the Seldom Scene, Larry Sparks, Doyle Lawson and the Country Gentlemen. Hylton's albums included Pickin' in the Parlor (1994) and True Stories, Tall Tales & Lies (1996). He also recorded a video, Randall Hylton on TV, which featured 22 songs and routines. A memorial service is planned for Wednesday (March 21), but details of the event have not been made final. He is survived by his wife, Patricia, and son, Blake. This is the second loss of a major bluegrass figure within the past week. Fiddler Benny Martin died March 13.


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A nice night…
Quite a performance by Derek Lowe tonight…how often do you see six perfect innings twice in the same homestand???
More than anything, I'm sure everyone was happy to see Andruw come through the way he did. It's a start, but I think I was more excited about the way he broke up the double play and the reaction the crowd gave him when he came off the field. Please keep that coming…it goes a long way and there's no one out there who knows how disappointing the season has been more than Andruw. But every bit of support can hopefully help him turn the season around.
Meanwhile, here's the latest blog from Scott Akasaki, our team travel manager…enjoy!
On the team plane, our players, coaches, and Dodger-affiliated media do a variety of things to occupy our time. On the most recent road trip, I went down the lone center aisle of our Delta Air Lines 737-800 team charter to gauge what exactly it is we do when flying. Our broadcasters are a hard-working group and a lot of them do research on the upcoming opposing team. They read statistics, study the opposing team's media guide, and garner information from other reference sources. Our coaches generally do their homework on the opposing team as well – they read scouting reports, look at video, scour in-depth statistics, and talk with each other about strategy. Their job of course, is to develop a game plan to help Joe Torre put our players in the best situation to succeed. The players are a mixed group. Some read, some watch movies or television shows on their DVD players or laptops, some sleep, some play cards, and a good number eat from our wide-variety catered menu.
In general, the longer flights tend to illicit more naps and more food consumption. There are about 65 people in our traveling party, which usually includes: players; coaches; on-field support staff; trainers; broadcasters; a PR representative, Dodger-affiliated media support staff; an interpreter; a traveling secretary; a video coordinator; baseball operations executives like our General Manager Ned Colletti or our Assistant General Manager Kim Ng; and perhaps some immediate family members. By the end of the season, we will have spent over 100 hours in the air, spread out over 33 flights, and covering more than 34,000 miles. Throw in our mid-spring trip to China and that's a lot of time in the air in seven months.
53 Comments
I'm first? yay!! WOW 🙂
with more food consumption lets hope andruw doesnt help himself
Lowe had a great game. Too bad his focus is more on golf than baseball…
I posted only maybe once or twice this whole series because I was holding my breath for us to win the 4th series in a row : )
plus there was a lot of debate & I just didn't want to get in the middle of all the guys and bring up girl talk… But I see some girls have joined in the forum & talked up how good the young players are… looks & career wise 🙂
Our boys in blue are on fire!! Goes well with this LA weather… Not everyone can have a good day but it's the effort these young players (&vets as well) are putting in & I hope they know how much fan support they have…. : )
I'm glad Mr. Torre has finally opened up his eyes a little bit, it's unpredictable how he's going to change the lineup and what direction these trade rumors are going to go but I'm glad a lot of us fans on here got to see the lineup we've been dying for… in the end nobody really knows the players, team, and staff better than themselves so we can b*tch complain and cry all we want but in the end Torre, Ned, McCourt, are going to do whatever they please…. Hope they know how much they affect us Dodger Fans..
Good Night*
The only thing that frustrates me is some people talk all this crap about a player but as soon as he starts coming around again & doing welll all the hate goes away until the next time that player is slumping…. I just thought fans should be more on the unconditional support level…
Repost from the last thread: I didn't think Josh would get a new thread up so fast. Not complainin', Josh.
dnelly, I'm glad you're having a great time. You sure did see some great pitching performances!
But how could you put on ANYTHING associated with the Yankees?! I don't care if it's a World Series ring or not. Growing up in the '70s when the Giants were a consistent non-contender and we faced the Yankess and that hip-throwing S.O.B Reggie Jackson three times in the W. I hate the Yankees even more than I hate the Gnats. Please don't ever let me hear about such blasphemies again.
Dodgers are averaging 4.5 runs/game since Kemp became leadoff. 4.2 runs/game since Pierre went down (that counts the one-run game in which Repko led off).
So glad we didn't trade Matt Kemp for CC Sabathia. Supposedly Sabathia would lead us to the promised land this year. First of all, there's a reasonable possibility that The Bison will be more valuable than CC over the next 2 1/2 months.
More importantly, THIS fan is not looking for one World Series Championship, but a DYNASTY in which the Dodgers go to the World Series maybe five times over the next decade. I don't want to throw that away for a one-time shot.
As has been pointed out CC and Ben Sheets will be free agents after this year, and we should be players when that time comes.
Meanwhile our pitching is still among the best in baseball. And that's with Fat Penny and Schmidt rehabing and Kershaw lurking in the minors. We have enough pitching to take us all the way THIS YEAR.
And if JoJo lets the best players play, we have enough hitting too.
I remain concerned about shortstop because it's a virtual sure thing that Nomar will break down and Berraza in the 8-hole is a pure waste. I would still love to acquire Jack Wilson — obviously not for Kemp (such a silly rumor) but maybe for somebody like Lucas May. That would give us major league insurance for Nomar and in the meantime we can dump both halves of Berraza.
Like any Dodgers fan, I too feel a bit of frustration with the offensive performance of Andruw Jones. But let's keep something in mind…
For just 12 or so years in the league, Jones has had a very illustrious career. 10 Gold Gloves, 5-All Star appearances and just 3 seasons ago, he led the majors in HR's and the NL in RBI's.
His defense is what should be valued right now. It's feast or famine for this offense right now, but the young guys are heating up (Loney, Ethier.) It's only a matter of time before Jones heats up too and this ball club can be very scary.
Jones has played 5 games off the DL… Cut him some slack and be patient. You'll love him by the end of the year.
Josh, it was indeed a nice night, and I agree with your comments, but don't you think Matt Kemp deserves some accolades, too? Hitting a HR against a pitcher like Hudson when he's on his game to breakup a scoreless dual is quite a feat in itself. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but it seems like there is always praise for the veterans but not much effort to give the kids the credit they deserve.
Super 2 to 1 Victory by our Beloved Los Angeles Dodgers over the Atlanta Braves putting us in first place! Super Hero Gutsy Derek Lowe was in Super World Series Championship Form with 6 perfect innings and 7 & 2/3 innings of Brilliant Stuff! Derek, You are a Great Dodger And Leader! Amazing Super Hero and Kryptonite Buster Matt Kemp comes through with His Moon Shot Home Run always helping his Teammates and Fans! Matt, what a wonder you are! Super Hero Andruw Jones makes his Dodger presence felt with His Game Winning RBI. Way to go, Andruw! Super Heroes Jonathan Broxton and Takashi Saito couldn't let Derek Lowe down and didn't! You guys are something else! All of our Los Angeles Dodgers were Super Heros! Sing & Cheer All of Us Los Angeles Dodger Fans For The Absolute Super Best is yet to come as October Glory will reveal Our Beloved Los Angeles Dodgers as the World Series Champions! After all we want to see Super Hero Skipper Joe Torre win the World Series in the National League to Tie only Sparky Anderson and Toni LaRussa as the only Managers To Win the World Series in both the National and American leagues and of course see Our Very Own, The Indestructable,Invincible, Man Of Steel,Superman Himself, Jeff Kent get His World Series Ring With all his Teammates in this Majestic Year 2008 A.D.!
ndeschenes, you are too much!!!
some scary news:
Mark Sweeney will start his rehab tomorrow. And Juan Pierre is said to be ahead of schedule with the MCL sprain in his left knee. He was supposed to miss four to six weeks, so I'm not exactly sure what ahead of schedule translates to.
that's the LAST thing we need. sweeney and pierre creeping closer to returning.. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
btw, i think it's so great that the crowd gave andruw a standing ovation after his hard slide. the fans will give you credit when you deserve it. you just gotta earn the respect first..
Final weekend before the All Star break favors the Dodgers in the West. D-Backs go to 1st-place Philly. Gnats go to 1st-place Cubs. Rocks go to Shea. Dodgers stay home against Marlins. Pods don't count.
As well as Andre and Matt are doing, I would say that everyone will have to earn his position. Homeruns speak. Mark Sweeney in his day was the best but I doubt he will ever be that good again. I'm not into Pierre bashing because everyone does it. Let's see how he does when he's off DL It's good to be this deep I would think. Dy needs to be used more IMO.
A message to Amy…I saw Matt tonight and seemed to be accompanied by an attractive dark skinned young lady. Interesting. He is usually alone. I could not relay your message because of that.
Thank you for your post on the Dodgers travelling, Scott. I always wondered what they did.
MLK – I didn't personally wear the ring. I just took a picture of my friend, jill, wearing the ring. I didn't realize I had typed it that way until I just read it. He does work for the Gnats now, too. I did make a point of asking him what happened to Sanchez tonight. He just laughed. He was very nice to us, and he thought the A's deal was stupid, but he said that's what the A's always do – train them and then trade them.
BTW – jhall – how are the Indian Fans handling what happened to them? The A's fans are furious as I had to sit by one that whole day. I kind of knew the Braves might win Tuesday because something had to go jill's way – She was actually more upset about losing Gaudin – there's rumors their ace duestrecher (sp?) is next.
About tonight's game – I had been cheering Andruw on the whole series, and I was really feeling bad for him and the booing (the braves fans were cheering him) so I made it a point to cheer him on instead. When he got that hit tonight and broke up that DP and the crowd erupted that was very cool – I just hope he keeps it up. Pierre was in the dugout this whole series and he wasn't on crutches. I saw him up swinging the bat a few times, so it would appear that he is making good progress in his recovery.
As far as the trade talks that have been happening on this board, it's not just Matt that's been talked about. Andre and James have also been brought up in the rumors, too. Most of this board are of the mindset that we need to stay with the kids (the core), and we need to stick to the idea of our young gun dynasty team, and not let outside readers* assume we want anything different (*meaning any persons within the Dodger organization or non-Dodger fans). I realize some of you have different opinions on this subject, but I just wanted to point out that these trade rumors don't just center around Matt, but a few of our other young guns as well.
Two more things – I know Dodgereric is in Tahoe, but I can't believe he drove from the San Diego area to Tahoe. That is one long a**ed drive. Also, to my fellow northern Californians (jnv, NSB, etc) – I hope all is still okay up where you are. It was mentioned down here that the fires were just north of Sacramento.
Sorry for the long post 🙂
LOS ANGELES — Ethan Martin, the Dodgers' first-round Draft pick last month, was at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night in anticipation of his signing, which could come as early as Thursday.
Martin, a 19-year-old right-handed pitcher from Stephens County High School in Georgia, is in line to receive a bonus of around $1.7 million as the 15th overall pick.
Meanwhile, last year's first-round pick (19th overall), Chris Withrow, is nursing a recurring sore right elbow. Club officials insist there is no structural damage; however he has not pitched in a game this year and there is no timetable on when he will.
Last month, Withrow apparently was close to being assigned to a Minor League roster, but suffered another setback. He currently is throwing at Class A Inland Empire, but it is not known when he will be game-ready and assigned to a Minor League roster.
After a series of injuries have sidetracked the careers of first-round pitchers Greg Miller and Scott Elbert, the club is being extra cautious bringing back Withrow. Miller continues to struggle at Triple-A, while Elbert is throwing hard again at Double-A.
The 19-year-old Withrow, who signed last year for a $1.35 million bonus, pitched only nine innings in six games last year.
Ken Gurnick is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
^ I know some ppl have been asking about Ethan Martin 🙂
Also, does Mr. Torre realise how well the team has been doing with Pierre and Sweeny on the D/L? Ha… I hope he does. I'm not a fan of Pierre but…. if he must be playing can't he just be in a lower spot & not lead off? & SWEENEY. I am totally against him he can be my grandpa already.. JK. Had a good career now it's time to move onto something he's actually good at.. (like I always say).
Of course the management team is always going to think of doing things the easy way.. big bucks for a big name to a big win.. which isn't guaranteed bekus they are worn out & will run out of fuel eventually….but I hope they realise how far investing & being patient in the young core of this team can be… if these past games/series hasn't been enough… actually if the careers of these rooks.. (Ethier, Kemp, Loney, etc…) hasn't been enough to prove to the management then maybe we don't deserve them. J/K.. I didn't mean to say that but I hope the front office knows.. like us loyal fans do..
and about Matt with his lady friend… I'm thinking it may be his sister? or a cousin….
I would still love to acquire Jack Wilson — obviously not for Kemp (such a silly rumor) but maybe for somebody like Lucas May. That would give us major league insurance for Nomar and in the meantime we can dump both halves of Berraza.
By email@example.com on July 9, 2008 10:32 PM
Somebody else other than Lucas May.
They introduced Ethan Martin last night at the game. He was there with his entire family. They introduced him as being the 1st round draft pick so the occasional fan now knows who he is 🙂
iheartaethier – Don't worry too much about the negative talk. Many of us are just worried about Joe going back to his old ways once Sweeney and Pierre come back. Andre and Matt will suffer the most when Pierre returns, and look what's happening to DY now I saw him once this whole series. He spent most of his time in the bullpen. As far as the boy talk, as long as it's kept to a minimum and doesn't take over the board, most of the guys on here don't mind – scott seemed to have fun with it yesterday. I think as long as the guys know we know our baseball too, they are fine with minimal boy talk. So, keep posting – we want to know what your thinking, too. BTW – Andre is just awesome. He didn't have A good game last night, but he had a good series. He was very upset with himself for missing that homerun by a few feet last night. However, after he got off the field, he went and sat by Pierre and talked to him for the rest of the inning – what a very cool guy 🙂
You know what I hate about the Dodgers? That they give me hope every year, then fail my expectations. I had all but given up on the Ds during their abysmal June; now they find themselves tied for 1st place. The worst part is, because they're playing well, I begin to believe in them again…but in my mind I know they don't have what it takes to go deep into the postseason, and I think they should focus on rebuilding for '09/'10.
Is this what being a Dodger fan is all about? Having too much faith in too little team?
Nelly, Indians fans are understandably very disappointed with the performance thus far. However, they do have faith in their management and believe they will make the right decisions for the future of the team. Careful and well thought out moves and no knee jerk panic moves that rarely pay dividends and usually come back to haunt you. Much different from how we feel (justifiably so) about our management.
jhall – that's good to hear about the fans out there. Jill was a little concerned about Grady, as was I, and then when found out what the A's did, we kept thinking – what next? It's just sad that we can't rely on our management to do the right thing, and play who deserves to play all the time. That's what makes these trade rumors so hard to read, even if they are just rumors. You really can't rule any of them out based on what the management has done in the past.
What is this garbage trade rumor (in last night's recap) about Lowe being traded for Renteria? You have got to be kidding!!!! Hey, let's wait until we're out of it and then trade him, but not for washed up SS has been's!!
xoxorussell- thanks for the info. hey I wont give up. Like iheartethier said, cousin right? I'm sure he has lot of friends. I will keep the hope alive. Nothing is impossible to me! (but strictly not in stalker form. I am a lady) 🙂
I'm glad we are back to first. It was a great win. Lowe was back to his awesome self!!
I will be at the game tonight and on Saturday xoxo- hint. I look forward to it!
My Dodgers rock!!
I will say it again. My my mind, the hating on Andruw isn't strictly that he's been struggling at the plate this season. It's because he has openly spoke out about "not caring" about the fans. That is what has offended me most about Jones. That attitude along with his poor performance as a starter just makes things worse. His interview last night was a lot nicer. He actually praised the fans. I need to see more of that from him in order for him to my my friend!
A little bit about Matt's at-bats this series – the poor guy must have the widest strike zone in the NL. He really didn't catch a break on many of his AB's, so I have A new outlook on why he may be swinging on pitches we know are too outside for him – his thinking has got to be; they are going to call it a strike anyway so I better swing. Some were his fault, but I could definitely understand his thinking on some, too.
Amy..the I don't care" comment was quoted in an article by that creep TJ Siemers so don't believe everything he writes. As per D Lowe, he does care, very much. The booing is despicable. Boo for the enemy, not for our guys. The young lady with Matt appeared to be a date. The body language did not indicate relative. The Dodgers are number one again. Go Dodgers.
amy – I hear you on the Andruw doesn't care about the fans attitude. Many of us are upset about that too. However, Pierre kind of did a similar thing when he complained about his playing time. He wasn't thinking about the team or the fans ethier (either). My thinking right now is that DY should be playing over both of them, but I am also realistic knowing our management. Ethier (either) way, Andre and Matt are both screwed when JP comes back, and DY even more so. The funny thing about spelling ethier instead of either, is that many have done the same thing. PierreEW did it last night – lol 🙂
If Pierre is put back right away into the lead off spot and LF and we happen to be in 1st playing well, then Torre and Pierre will both be boo-ed unmercifully if Matt or Andre are the ones sitting. Totally unacceptable.
Matt probably does suffer from a big strike zone from the umps. It could be the product of three things:
1) He's still a new player in the league.
2) He does swing at a lot of stuff outside the zone, especially down and away.
3) He too often shows his frustration with the umpires.
As he gains more experience and stops going for that down and away stuff, the umpires will begin to respect his strike zone more. And although he may often be right about bad/unfair ball-strike calls he needs to work on hiding his opinion. Actually I think he has made some progress in this last area. Hopefully Mattingly will do something to help him from constantly biting at the low-and-away stuff.
this whole 4 man outfield situation is getting old. I love 3 of them and want them all to play. In my mind I haven't figured out how it's all gonna work out. I like them all to play. I guess that's why God invented the backup. People need rest.
you are right. It was a TJ article. But to me, i haven't seen anything from Andruw that shows me differently. I will just give him a chance to prove that he supports LA fans.
Matt will be alone again I'm sure. Thanks again xoxo.
Yes Scott. Remind me please. Torre said that no matter what Andruw will be starting. Did he say the same for Pierre?
And if he did, does it necessarily guarantee Pierre the lead off spot? could he possibly be bating lower in the order like before??
At this point, I'm putting all of my chips on Stan Conte to come up with another injury for Pierre to keep him out indefinitely, because I don't trust Torre/Colletti.
this is from an article on foxsports.com about the things we've learned from the 1st half of baseball:
Based on the pre-injury performance of first-year hire Andruw Jones (a .171 batting average with two homers and nine RBIs in 49 games), L.A. Dodgers GM Ned Colletti may be a long shot choice as Executive of the Year.
Ned is lurching toward a bit of redemption, however, thanks to the recent efforts of imported rookie Hiroki Kuroda and the (so far) refusal to part with top prospects in a trade that would swing the balance of (ahem) power in the already-winnable NL West.
true, while sabathia was crap against the red sox in the post season last year, who are we to say anything about being crappy? we've gone 20 years without winning jack squat. it could be said that we're already loaded with good pitching, but are we really gonna say we couldn't have used the services of CC sabathia? a rotation of sabathia, billingsley, lowe, kershaw, and penny/park would have been incredible. think about this: the combined OPS of our 3rd basemen this season is 720. that's a shade over juan pierre's career average of 718. so we're basically getting juan pierre production from our 3rd base parade, which is among the worst in all of baseball. calling casey blake a "useless piece" is a huge stretch. statistically speaking, he's having a better season than anybody on the dodgers with the exception of martin, ethier, and loney. needless to say, he would be an upgrade. as to the idea that his RBI total is so high because of the DH is ludacris. are we really gonna take away from a guy's value because he hits guys in when they're on base? on top of that, have you seen cleveland's production from the DH spot? it's vomit inducing. if Rosenthal was accurate in his report, we could have gotten all of these guys without sacrificing any of our "crown jewels" (kemp, Broxton, loney, Kershaw, billingsley, ethier, etc). we would have let sabathia sign with some other team and net 2 premium draft picks in addition to any compensatory picks we'll get when lowe, nomar, furcal sign elsewhere. While we do give up some talent, we're still in prime position to have dibs on the best talent of next year's draft, which is by all accounts stronger than this years was.
we may be good enough to win the division with the team we have right now, but does anybody truly believe we'll be able to do anything in the playoffs once we get there? any team can get hot in the playoffs and do some damage, but we can't count on a hot streak to be successful (see 2006). so far, consistency has done a masterful job eluding us.
the dodgers either need to crap or get off the pot with the laroche/dewitt situation. platooning a couple of guys in their early 20's who are chomping at the bit for playing time is idiotic. let laroche play everyday and prove himself or trade him to an organization that appreciates his talent and will give him a shot. i really feel bad for him.
anyway we slice it, this team is simply not good enough. i'm a huge supporter of the youth movement, but our guys still need another 4-5 years before they're all in their prime and are producing at the levels they are capable of. there will definitely be flashes of brilliance here and there, great plays, and clutch at-bats sprinkled in, but we need to remember these guys are just getting started and will take their lumps like everybody else.
with that said, mccourt should really look into hiring a capable GM who isn't teetering on the brink of mental retardation and has a clear-cut direction for this team.
go dodgers.
Are you still in LA? because if you are stay there. The smoke up here is horrible!!!! It's so thick you can cut it with a knife.
First a suggestion. When you write long posts, break them up a little more. People have a tendency to skip past large chunks on blogsites.
I think it's a little misleading to present "Juan Pierre production" in the form of his .718 lifetime OPS considering that his 2008 OPS is .645 (.689 OPS in '07).
As to Casey Blake, he's a 34-year-old mediocrity whose 2nd-half lifetime OPS is 48 points lower than his 1st-half lifetime OPS. There is little reason to believe that Blake will be noticeably better than LaWittaparra in the second half of this year. Here are Blake's lifetime splits: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?n1=blakeca01&year=c
No matter how close the 3B production is or isn't to Pierre's, the fact remains that a .720 OPS from 3B is not going to cut it for a team with playoff aspirations – unless they have huge bats elsewhere. I'm with yarrum that the time has come for Andy LaRoche to get his extended shot at the job, similar to the one Blake DeWitt already had.
And I'm with mlk on Casey Blake – he actually turns 35 soon – who is the quintessential average MLB hitter. That is not a good acquisition for a sub-.500 team, playoff-contender or not. For the Dodgers, only a huge 3B upgrade makes sense, and a guy like that is not available (I don't think). The needed upgrade may simply come from playing LaRoche every day. The Dodgers need power and he might supply it.
LaRoche has power and walks a lot. What more do you want Joe Torre?
jnv – I am down in San Diego now – going to Padres/Braves game tomorrow just to say I've been to Petco. Get to see Peavy pitch against somebody other than us. Sorry to hear about fires – I couldn't tell if the news down here was just exaggerating about just north of Sac, but I guess they were right. Is it bad in Tahoe area, too? – eric's up there still, I believe. Be safe upper there! 🙂
I'm still catching up, but ….
enchanted – NICE work on "'OL MAMA SLAPPY" [Polk (Poke) Salad Annie]. Hilarious! Bonus: I love the Tony Joe White original.
jnv – I am down in San Diego now – going to Padres/Braves game tomorrow just to say I've been to Petco. Get to see Peavy pitch against somebody other than us. Sorry to hear about fires – I couldn't tell if the news down here was just exaggerating about just north of Sac, but I guess they were right. Is it bad in Tahoe area, too? – eric's up there still, I believe. Be safe upper there! 🙂
why bat Lowe in the 7th with bases loaded with only a two run lead .shades of Grady or is he the best hitter on the bench
I would agree that we need to give LaRoche some playing time in order to determine whether he's ready for the major league level. Just putting him in against left-handers doesn't do much for Andy or Blake – it will just reinforce the idea that one won't be able to hit right-handers and the other left-handers like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would not have done it while Blake was hot, but since he's cooled off, I think it's time to see Andy for a couple of series at least.
I agree, Bear.
I put my chips on DeWitt. Good defense, good contact hitter, heady player. I'm not down on LaRoche, just feel DeWitt is a better career player. Doesn't mean LaRoche couldn't play 2nd base full time. But for whatever reason, a dark little cloud seems to follow LaRoche. He just can't seem to the seize the few moments given to him. And Torre, Mr. "I Love Vets," is probably his worst nightmare.
joanrich – because Lowe was throwing a one-hit shutout at that point and had a low pitch count. He would have finished the eighth if he hadn't either 1. given up the solo HR, or 2. walked the 8th place hitter (his last batter).
I can't even believe why joanrich would even posted that when it was so obvisouly you don't pulled a pitcher with a 1 hitter shutout and a low pitch count.
puppyhead–"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone."
–A. Bartlett Giamatti
Enjoy San Diego, it is beautiful down there. It's to bad they have a crappy BBall team!! 🙂
Yes Eric is up in Tahoe and it's not to nice up there either, We are leaving on Sunday to go up there and they are supposed to have Thunder storms which should clear the air I hope. (crossing fingers)
jnv – sorry for double post. Sometimes I can't tell if it's gone through, and I haven't been checking too often. Take care up there – it is beautiful here. My husband said the valley is just brutally hot, and with the bad air quality, it's making it worse. He said you guys up there are a lot worse off because of the smoke issues. It's been all over the news – yuck!
leefink – AWESOME POST!
MLK – Thanks for your insights on Kemp – I think Mattingly will do great things with him, and I promise to never think about touching anything Yankee, or Gnat for that matter, again. That's the second thing I did wrong this trip. The first thing is a long story and I am a little embarrassed to admit, plus the guilt factor involved. I will eventually tell but not yet – lol!
There has been a lot of Coletti bashing but the fact remains we are a game out of first and last year we were in the hunt until the end; he has not exhibited panic by dealing away the future for the immediate gratification of the present.


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NAVIGON, formally known as MobileNavigator in the US (TMA Review), has just been updated to 2.0 and showcases some brand new features. Already considered by many as the top navigation app for the iPhone/iPad (myself included), NAVIGON 2.0 now boasts a "fully refined and even easier to use UI" and more importantly, the ability to download only the maps and regions that you actually need (US and North America versions). So instead of having to download/install a 1.8 GB app right off the bat, they weigh in at just 45 mb.
Better yet, the apps are now $20 off, so NAVIGON NA is on sale for $39.99, and the USA and Canada apps are only $29.99. Check out the press release and video demo for more info after the break.
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You are hereBoat Design Browser / Night Heron Kayaks / Night Heron - High Deck
Night Heron - High Deck
This design is exactly the same as the regular deck Night Heron below the sheer line. The deck has been bumped up for a little more leg room a more storage volume. This boat will maintain the performance characteristics of the standard deck version, but provide more room for taller paddlers.
The plans for this boat also include the lines for the regular deck height version so you can choose which height you desire after you purchase the plans.
Purchase Boat Plans:


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Dear Emily,
Remember last weekend when we went to the Long Beach Antique Market and it was, like, the worst experience of our whole lives? Well, it was raining, which was a bad sign, but we went anyway. As we were arriving (later than normal due to both of us oversleeping), all the vendors were rushing to put their stuff away, running away from us in terror like we were zombies coming for their flesh. For those of you who don't live in Southern California, it should be noted that people here respond to rain as if it were the worst natural disaster in the world. I don't personally own an umbrella or any other gear that would protect me from rain. So when it rains it kind of ruins the world. And flea markets. Thus, Emily and I pretty much started crying and whining as soon as we got to Long Beach. I was unconsolable. Until Emily slapped me and told me we better get shopping before all the stuff was packed up and taken away. We frantically ran from vendor to vendor in search of deals. Despite the life ruining weather, we found some scores.
I kind of like these stupid mannequins. I would.
We liked this bench for one of our clients but it's SO LONG!
I liked this outdoor fire pit thing. If I were a lady I would put this in my ladygarden. That wasn't meant to sound dirty but it kind of did. Sorrlz.
We bought the blue bench for a client. $100.
Look at this leather bag! We bought it for a client for $40!
We almost bought this for a French Industrial client, but it was $400 and there wasn't a good place for it in her house.
Whenever Emily sees brass, her eyes turn into spirals and she walks straight to it like a zombie. These bookends were $20. We didn't buy them because we were depressed about the rain.
Emily: "Should we get this?" Me: "Sure." Emily: "I'm bored."
We bought this trunk for the end of a client's enormous bed. $100.
We almost bought this for a client's playtable. But it's kinda boring and would probably benefit from being spray lacquered white, which would make it too expensive for their budget. $120.
Because it was raining, we ran away from the flea market almost as fast as all the vendors. We fled to the antique mall in Pasadena, where luckily they were serving hot apple cider and cookies. Which made us feel better because sometimes we like to eat our feelings. We saw a few cool things there, too.
Look at this cool architectural model! It would be a supes fun coffee table.
Emily: "I don't like black leather, but I love this chair!" Me: "I'm bored."
I like this painting at the Pasadena antique mall. It's $125 though so I might just make a knock off myself. I am a terrible person.
We liked this bench for our modern-pop clients but then Emily sat on it and it almost broke. Emily weighs 17 lbs. Dealbreaker.
We like this table for our French industrial client but it was too big.
Look at this ridiculous hat/box situation! I mean, the beautiful handmade hat comes in a beautiful handmade box. SO much work! But so neato!
Me: "Look at that awesome armoire!" Emily: <cricket noises>
This trunk is stupid. I don't know why I took a picture of it. I'm an idiot.
We like this Paris map but it's $250. Conundrums.
This little drum is cute. And so are you. $150
This makes me want to kidnap Angela Lansbury and lock her in a room, forcing her to write about mysterious events like she did on 'Murder She Wrote.'
We like this chair but it's arms fell off. Oops! $250.
I know what I'm getting Emily for Christmas…
This Moroccan chest was $400. Not too bad…
We've looked at this painting many times, but never buy it because it's tiny and $175.
Look, a trumpet horn thingy! Or whatever. $100. (We didn't buy it).
These vintage 3D maps were a bit steep at $250, but we both loved them deeply.
Finally, because we could not stop shopping, we wandered around Old Town Pasadena. This is a rug we're looking at for a client. It a pretty great value. It's $299 for an 8′ x 10′! From Crate & Barrel.
At the end of the day we actually got a lot done. We were devastated by how lame the rained out flea market was, but a glamorous secret lunch in Pasadena followed by some good antique mall time made up for it. Thank goodness.


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Prof. Eugene Gloria Wins 2013 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Poetry
April 22, 2013
Eugene Gloria, associate professor of English at DePauw University, is the recipient of the 2013 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for poetry for My Favorite Warlord. Announced today, the Anisfield-Wolf Awards "recognize books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures." Gloria and the other winners will be honored at a September 12 ceremony at the Ohio Theatre in Cleveland which will be emceed by Henry Louis Gates Jr., who chaired the jury for the awards program.
"The 2013 Anisfield-Wolf winners are exemplars who broaden our vision of race and diversity," says Gates, the the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, where he directs the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research. "This year, there is exceptional writing about the war in Iraq, slavery on a Kentucky pig farm, the Filipino experience in the U.S., and the complexity of families in which a child is radically different from parents."
"(Gloria's) collection, a meditation on his late father and a lyric memoir of 1967, when he was 10 years old and emigrated with his family from the Philippines to San Francisco, touches on issues of heritage, identity and memory," reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The DePauw professor tells the newspaper, "I'm incredibly honored. My wife and I were weeping when we finally accepted that this was a real thing."
Cleveland poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf established the book prizes in 1935, in honor of her father, John Anisfield, and husband, Eugene Wolf, to reflect her family's passion for issues of social justice. "The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards rose from the philanthropic vision of one woman who realized that literature could advance the ongoing dialogue about race, culture, ethnicity, and our shared humanity," says Ronald B. Richard, president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation, the world's first community foundation, which has administered the Anisfield-Wolf prize since 1963.
Other members of the Anisfield-Wolf jury are novelist Joyce Carol Oates, psychologist Steven Pinker, poet Rita Dove, and historian Simon Schama.
Read more here.
My Favorite Warlord, the third book of poems by Eugene Gloria, was published last summer by Penguin.
Publishers Weekly noted, "Gloria establishes himself as a poet of memory, of masculinity, as well as of Asian-American political identity (with, for example, an elegy to Vincent Chin, slain in a famous anti-Asian hate crime). His formal resourcefulness and his attention to manhood, its symbols, its troubles, place him in the company of Bruce Smith, though his work will also, and rightly, find another niche among other Asian-American writers; Gloria (who teaches at DePauw University in Indiana) sets himself confidently against injustice, in favor of inquiry, amid the eclectic language of contemporary scenes."
Poet, songwriter and novelist Naomi Shihab Nye says Gloria's "gift is breathtaking."
Professor Gloria's previous books, also part of the Penguin Poets series, are Hoodlum Birds (2006) and Drivers at the Short-Time Motel (2000), which was was selected for the 1999 National Poetry Series and also won the Asian American Literary Award. Gloria's work is also included in the collection Between Water and Song: New Poets for the Twenty-First Century. The professor is also the recipient of a Fulbright Research Grant, a Poetry Society of America award, and a Pushcart Prize.
In 2006-08, as Gloria was beginning work on My Favorite Warlord, the professor received important support and reassigned time from a chair funded by Richard W. Peck, bestselling author and 1956 graduate of DePauw.
Eugene Gloria earned his B.A. from San Francisco State University, a M.A. from Miami University of Ohio, and an M.F.A. from the University of Oregon.Back


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Showing 1 - 3 of 3
Report Public Workforce
The Citizens' Stakes in Collective Bargaining
December 12, 2000Report presenting recommendations for contracts to be negotiated with municipal employees that would help reduce the cost of public services, improve the quality of those services, and enhance the income and working conditions of New York's civil servants.
Report Capital Spending
An Affordable Debt Policy for New York State and New York City
October 17, 2000Presents a new approach for determining how much the State and City should borrow, including criteria for deciding how much state and local debt is affordable.
Using Collective Bargaining to Improve Public Education: Recommendations for the 2000 Negotiations With the United Federation of Teachers
August 30, 2000This report on the contract between the Board of Education and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) provides suggestions for how to improve public schools through collective bargaining.


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Fossil range: Template:Fossil rangeCambrian to recent, but see text
|File:Diversity of plants image version 3.png
|Scientific classification
Land plants (embryophytes)
Plants are a major group of life forms and include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. About 350,000 species of plants, defined as seed plants, bryophytes, ferns and fern allies, are estimated to exist currently. As of 2004, some 287,655 species had been identified, of which 258,650 are flowering and 15,000 bryophytes (see table below). Green plants, sometimes called metaphytes, obtain most of their energy from sunlight via a process called photosynthesis.
- 1 Definition
- 2 Diversity
- 3 Life processes
- 4 Ecology
- 5 Importance
- 6 See also
- 7 References
- 8 External links
Aristotle divided all living things between plants (which generally do not move), and animals (which often are mobile to catch their food). In Linnaeus' system, these became the Kingdoms Vegetabilia (later Metaphyta or Plantae) and Animalia (also called Metazoa). Since then, it has become clear that the Plantae as originally defined included several unrelated groups, and the fungi and several groups of algae were removed to new kingdoms. However, these are still often considered plants in many contexts, both technical and popular.
When the name Plantae or plants is applied to a specific taxon, it is usually referring to one of three concepts. From smallest to largest in inclusiveness, these three groupings are:
- Land plants, also known as Embryophyta or Metaphyta. As the narrowest of plant categories, this is further delineated below.
- Green plants - also known as Viridiplantae, Viridiphyta or Chlorobionta - comprise the above Embryophytes, Charophyta (i.e., primitive stoneworts), and Chlorophyta (i.e., green algae such as sea lettuce). It is this clade which is mainly the subject of this article.
- Archaeplastida - also known as Plantae sensu lato, Plastida or Primoplantae - comprises the green plants above, as well as Rhodophyta (red algae) and Glaucophyta (simple glaucophyte algae). As the broadest plant clade, this comprises most of the eukaryotes that eons ago acquired their chloroplasts directly by engulfing cyanobacteria.
Informally, other creatures that carry out photosynthesis are called plants as well, but they do not constitute a formal taxon and represent species that are not closely related to true plants. There are around 375,000 species of plants, and each year more are found and described by science.
Most algae are no longer classified within the Kingdom Plantae; they are now included among the protists.[2][3] The algae comprise several different groups of organisms that produce energy through photosynthesis, each of which arose independently from separate non-photosynthetic ancestors. Most conspicuous among the algae are the seaweeds, multicellular algae that may roughly resemble terrestrial plants, but are classified among the green, red, and brown algae. Each of these algal groups also includes various microscopic and single-celled organisms.
Only two groups of algae are considered close relatives of land plants (embryophytes). The first of these groups is the Charophyta (desmids and stoneworts), from which the embryophytes developed.[4][5][6] The sister group to the combined embryophytes and charophytes is the other group of green algae (Chlorophyta), and this more inclusive group is collectively referred to as the green plants or Viridiplantae. The Kingdom Plantae is often taken to mean this monophyletic grouping. With a few exceptions among the green algae, all such forms have cell walls containing cellulose, have chloroplasts containing chlorophylls a and b, and store food in the form of starch. They undergo closed mitosis without centrioles, and typically have mitochondria with flat cristae.
The chloroplasts of green plants are surrounded by two membranes, suggesting they originated directly from endosymbiotic cyanobacteria. The same is true of two additional groups of algae: the Rhodophyta (red algae) and Glaucophyta. All three groups together are generally believed to have a common origin, and so are classified together in the taxon Archaeplastida. In contrast, most other algae (e.g. heterokonts, haptophytes, dinoflagellates, and euglenids) have chloroplasts with three or four surrounding membranes. They are not close relatives of the green plants, presumably acquiring chloroplasts separately from ingested or symbiotic green and red algae.
Fungi are no longer considered to be plants, though they were previously included in the plant kingdom. Unlike embryophytes and algae, fungi are not photosynthetic, but are saprotrophs: obtaining food by breaking down and absorbing surrounding materials. Fungi are not plants, but were historically treated as closely related to plants, and were considered to be in the purview of botanists. It has long been recognized that fungi are evolutionarily closer to animals than to plants, but they still are covered more in depth in introductory botany courses and are not necessarily touched upon in introductory zoology courses. Most fungi are formed by microscopic structures called hyphae, which may or may not be divided into cells but contain eukaryotic nuclei. Fruiting bodies, of which mushrooms are most familiar, are the reproductive structures of fungi. They are not related to any of the photosynthetic groups, but are close relatives of animals. Therefore, the fungi are in a kingdom of their own.
About 350,000 species of plants, defined as seed plants, bryophytes, ferns and fern allies, are estimated to exist currently. As of 2004, some 287,655 species had been identified, of which 258,650 are flowering plants, 16,000 bryophytes, 11,000 ferns and 8,000 green algae.
|Informal group
|Division name
|Common name
|No. of living species
|Green algae
|green algae (chlorophytes)
|3,800 [7]
|green algae (desmids & charophytes)
|4,000 - 6,000 [8]
|6,000 - 8,000 [9]
|100 - 200 [10]
|10,000 [11]
|club mosses
|1,200 [3]
|ferns, whisk ferns & horsetails
|11,000 [3]
|Seed plants
|160 [12]
|1 [13]
|630 [3]
|70 [3]
|flowering plants
|258,650 [14]
A proposed phylogeny of the Plantae after Kenrick and Crane[15] is as follows, with modification to the Pteridophyta from Smith et al.[16] The Prasinophyceae may be a paraphyletic basal group to all green plants.
Most familiar are the multicellular land plants, called embryophytes. They include the vascular plants, plants with full systems of leaves, stems, and roots. They also include a few of their close relatives, often called bryophytes, of which mosses and liverworts are the most common.
All of these plants have eukaryotic cells with cell walls composed of cellulose, and most obtain their energy through photosynthesis, using light and carbon dioxide to synthesize food. About three hundred plant species do not photosynthesize but are parasites on other species of photosynthetic plants. Plants are distinguished from green algae, which represent a mode of photosynthetic life similar to the kind modern plants are believed to have evolved from, by having specialized reproductive organs protected by non-reproductive tissues.
Bryophytes first appeared during the early Palaeozoic. They can only survive where moisture is available for significant periods, although some species are desiccation tolerant. Most species of bryophyte remain small throughout their life-cycle. This involves an alternation between two generations: a haploid stage, called the gametophyte, and a diploid stage, called the sporophyte. The sporophyte is short-lived and remains dependent on its parent gametophyte.
Vascular plants first appeared during the Silurian period, and by the Devonian had diversified and spread into many different land environments. They have a number of adaptations that allowed them to overcome the limitations of the bryophytes. These include a cuticle resistant to desiccation, and vascular tissues which transport water throughout the organism. In most the sporophyte acts as a separate individual, while the gametophyte remains small.
The first primitive seed plants, Pteridosperms (seed ferns) and Cordaites, both groups now extinct, appeared in the late Devonian and diversified through the Carboniferous, with further evolution through the Permian and Triassic periods. In these the gametophyte stage is completely reduced, and the sporophyte begins life inside an enclosure called a seed, which develops while on the parent plant, and with fertilisation by means of pollen grains. Whereas other vascular plants, such as ferns, reproduce by means of spores and so need moisture to develop, some seed plants can survive and reproduce in extremely arid conditions.
Early seed plants are referred to as gymnosperms (naked seeds), as the seed embryo is not enclosed in a protective structure at pollination, with the pollen landing directly on the embryo. Four surviving groups remain widespread now, particularly the conifers, which are dominant trees in several biomes. The angiosperms, comprising the flowering plants, were the last major group of plants to appear, emerging from within the gymnosperms during the Jurassic and diversifying rapidly during the Cretaceous. These differ in that the seed embryo (angiosperm) is enclosed, so the pollen has to grow a tube to penetrate the protective seed coat; they are the predominant group of flora in most biomes today.
Plant fossils include roots, wood, leaves, seeds, fruit, pollen, spores, phytoliths, and amber (the fossilized resin produced by some plants). Fossil land plants are recorded in terrestrial, lacustrine, fluvial and nearshore marine sediments. Pollen, spores and algae (dinoflagellates and acritarchs) are used for dating sedimentary rock sequences. The remains of fossil plants are not as common as fossil animals, although plant fossils are locally abundant in many regions worldwide.
The earliest fossils clearly assignable to Kingdom Plantae are fossil green algae from the Cambrian. These fossils resemble calcified multicellular members of the Dasycladales. Earlier Precambrian fossils are known which resemble single-cell green algae, but definitive identity with that group of algae is uncertain.
The oldest known trace fossils of embryophytes date from the Ordovician, though such fossils are fragmentary. By the Silurian, fossils of whole plants are preserved, including the lycophyte Baragwanathia longifolia. From the Devonian, detailed fossils of rhyniophytes have been found. Early fossils of these ancient plants show the individual cells within the plant tissue. The Devonian period also saw the evolution of what many believe to be the first modern tree, Archaeopteris. This fern-like tree combined a woody trunk with the fronds of a fern, but produced no seeds.
The Coal Measures are a major source of Palaeozoic plant fossils, with many groups of plants in existence at this time. The spoil heaps of coal mines are the best places to collect; coal itself is the remains of fossilised plants, though structural detail of the plant fossils is rarely visible in coal. In the Fossil Forest at Victoria Park in Glasgow, Scotland, the stumps of Lepidodendron trees are found in their original growth positions.
The fossilized remains of conifer and angiosperm roots, stems and branches may be locally abundant in lake and inshore sedimentary rocks from the Mesozoic and Caenozoic eras. Sequoia and its allies, magnolia, oak, and palms are often found.
Petrified wood is common in some parts of the world, and is most frequently found in arid or desert areas where it is more readily exposed by erosion. Petrified wood is often heavily silicified (the organic material replaced by silicon dioxide), and the impregnated tissue is often preserved in fine detail. Such specimens may be cut and polished using lapidary equipment. Fossil forests of petrified wood have been found in all continents.
Fossils of seed ferns such as Glossopteris are widely distributed throughout several continents of the southern hemisphere, a fact that gave support to Alfred Wegener's early ideas regarding Continental drift theory.
Life processes
Most of the solid material in a plant is taken from the atmosphere. Through a process known as photosynthesis, plants use the energy in sunlight to convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into simple sugars. These sugars are then used as building blocks and form the main structural component of the plant. Plants rely on soil primarily for support and water (in quantitative terms), but also obtain nitrogen, phosphorus and other crucial elemental nutrients. For the majority of plants to grow successfully they also require oxygen in the atmosphere and around their roots for respiration. However, a few specialized vascular plants, such as Mangroves, can grow with their roots in anoxic conditions.
Factors affecting growth
The genotype of a plant affects its growth, for example selected varieties of wheat grow rapidly, maturing within 110 days, whereas others, in the same environmental conditions, grow more slowly and mature within 155 days.[17]
Growth is also determined by environmental factors, such as temperature, available water, available light, and available nutrients in the soil. Any change in the availability of these external conditions will be reflected in the plants growth.
Biotic factors (living organisms) also affect plant growth.
- Plants compete with other plants for space, water, light and nutrients. Plants can be so crowded that no single individual makes normal growth.[17]
- Many plants rely on birds and insects to effect pollination.
- Grazing animals may affect vegetation.
- Soil fertility is influenced by the activity of bacteria and fungi.
- Bacteria, fungi, viruses, nematodes and insects can parasitise plants.
- Some plant roots require an association with fungi to maintain normal activity (mycorrhizal association).[17]
Simple plants like algae may have short life spans as individuals, but their populations are commonly seasonal. Other plants may be organized according to their seasonal growth pattern:
- Annual: live and reproduce within one growing season.
- Biennial: live for two growing seasons; usually reproduce in second year.
- Perennial: live for many growing seasons; continue to reproduce once mature.
Among the vascular plants, perennials include both evergreens that keep their leaves the entire year, and deciduous plants which lose their leaves for some part of it. In temperate and boreal climates, they generally lose their leaves during the winter; many tropical plants lose their leaves during the dry season.
The growth rate of plants is extremely variable. Some mosses grow less than 0.001 mm/h, while most trees grow 0.025-0.250 mm/h. Some climbing species, such as kudzu, which do not need to produce thick supportive tissue, may grow up to 12.5 mm/h.
Plants protect themselves from frost and dehydration stress with antifreeze proteins, heat-shock proteins and sugars (sucrose is common). LEA (Late Embryogenesis Abundant) protein expression is induced by stresses and protects other proteins from aggregation as a result of desiccation and freezing.[18]
Internal distribution
Vascular plants differ from other plants in that they transport nutrients between different parts through specialized structures, called xylem and phloem. They also have roots for taking up water and minerals. The xylem moves water and minerals from the root to the rest of the plant, and the phloem provides the roots with sugars and other nutrient produced by the leaves. [19]
The photosynthesis conducted by land plants and algae is the ultimate source of energy and organic material in nearly all ecosystems. Photosynthesis radically changed the composition of the early Earth's atmosphere, which as a result is now 21% oxygen. Animals and most other organisms are aerobic, relying on oxygen; those that do not are confined to relatively rare anaerobic environments. Plants are the primary producers in most terrestrial ecosystems and form the basis of the food web in those ecosystems. Many animals rely on plants for shelter as well as oxygen and food.
Land plants are key components of the water cycle and several other biogeochemical cycles. Some plants have coevolved with nitrogen fixing bacteria, making plants an important part of the nitrogen cycle. Plant roots play an essential role in soil development and prevention of soil erosion.
Template:Section-stub Plants are distributed worldwide in varying numbers. While they inhabit a multitude of biomes and ecoregions, few can be found beyond the tundras at the northernmost regions of continental shelves. At the southern extremes, plants have adapted tenaciously to the prevailing conditions. (See Antarctic flora.)
Plants are often the dominant physical and structural component of habitats where they occur. Many of the Earth's biomes are named for the type of vegetation because plants are the dominant organisms in those biomes, such as grasslands and forests.
Ecological relationships
Numerous animals have coevolved with plants. Many animals pollinate flowers in exchange for food in the form of pollen or nectar. Many animals disperse seeds, often by eating fruit and passing the seeds in their feces. Myrmecophytes are plants that have coevolved with ants. The plant provides a home, and sometimes food, for the ants. In exchange, the ants defend the plant from herbivores and sometimes competing plants. Ant wastes provide organic fertilizer.
The majority of plant species have various kinds of fungi associated with their root systems in a kind of mutualistic symbiosis known as mycorrhiza. The fungi help the plants gain water and mineral nutrients from the soil, while the plant gives the fungi carbohydrates manufactured in photosynthesis. Some plants serve as homes for endophytic fungi that protect the plant from herbivores by producing toxins. The fungal endophyte, Neotyphodium coenophialum, in tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) does tremendous economic damage to the cattle industry in the U.S.
Various forms of parasitism are also fairly common among plants, from the semi-parasitic mistletoe that merely takes some nutrients from its host, but still has photosynthetic leaves, to the fully parasitic broomrape and toothwort that acquire all their nutrients through connections to the roots of other plants, and so have no chlorophyll. Some plants, known as myco-heterotrophs, parasitize mycorrhizal fungi, and hence act as epiparasites on other plants.
Many plants are epiphytes, meaning they grow on other plants, usually trees, without parasitizing them. Epiphytes may indirectly harm their host plant by intercepting mineral nutrients and light that the host would otherwise receive. The weight of large numbers of epiphytes may break tree limbs. Many orchids, bromeliads, ferns and mosses often grow as epiphytes. Bromeliad epiphytes accumulate water in leaf axils to form phytotelmata, complex aquatic food webs.[20]
A few plants are carnivorous, such as the Venus Flytrap and sundew. They trap small animals and digest them to obtain mineral nutrients, especially nitrogen.
The study of plant uses by people is termed economic botany or ethnobotany. They are often used as synonyms but some consider economic botany to focus mainly on uses of modern cultivated plants, while ethnobotany studies uses of indigenous plants by native peoples. Human cultivation of plants is part of agriculture, which is the basis of human civilization. Plant agriculture is subdivided into agronomy, horticulture and forestry.
Virtually all human nutrition depends on land plants directly or indirectly. Much of human nutrition depends on cereals, especially maize or corn, wheat and rice or other staple crops such as potato, cassava, and legumes. Other parts from plants that are eaten include fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, spices and edible flowers. Beverages from plants include coffee, tea, wine, beer and alcohol. Sugar is obtained mainly from sugar cane and sugar beet. Cooking oils and margarine come from corn, soybean, canola, safflower, sunflower, olive and others. Food additives include gum arabic, guar gum, locust bean gum, starch and pectin.
Nonfood products
Wood is used for buildings, furniture, paper, cardboard, musical instruments and sports equipment. Cloth is often made from cotton, flax or synthetic fibers derived from cellulose, such as rayon and acetate. Renewable fuels from plants include firewood, peat and many other biofuels. Coal and petroleum are fossil fuels derived from plants. Medicines derived from plants include aspirin, taxol, morphine, quinine, reserpine, colchicine, digitalis and vincristine. There are hundreds of herbal supplements such as ginkgo, Echinacea, feverfew, and Saint John's wort. Pesticides derived from plants include nicotine, rotenone, strychnine and pyrethrins. Drugs obtained from plants include opium, cocaine and marijuana. Poisons from plants include ricin, hemlock and curare. Plants are the source of many natural products such as fibers, essential oils, dyes, pigments, waxes, tannins, latex, gums, resins, alkaloids, amber and cork. Products derived from plants include soaps, paints, shampoos, perfumes, cosmetics, turpentine, rubber, varnish, lubricants, linoleum, plastics, inks, chewing gum and hemp rope. Plants are also a primary source of basic chemicals for the industrial synthesis of a vast array of organic chemicals. These chemicals are used in a vast variety of studies and experiments.
Aesthetic uses
Thousands of plant species are cultivated to beautify the human environment as well as to provide shade, modify temperatures, reduce windspeed, abate noise, provide privacy and prevent soil erosion. People use cut flowers, dried flowers and house plants indoors. Outdoors, they use lawngrasses, shade trees, ornamental trees, shrubs, vines, herbaceous perennials and bedding plants. Images of plants are often used in art, architecture, humor, language and photography and on textiles, money, stamps, flags and coats of arms. Living plant art forms include topiary, bonsai, ikebana and espalier. Ornamental plants have sometimes changed the course of history, as in tulipomania. Plants are the basis of a multi-billion dollar per year tourism industry which includes travel to arboretums, botanical gardens, historic gardens, national parks, tulip festivals, rainforests, forests with colorful autumn leaves and the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Venus flytrap, sensitive plant and resurrection plant are examples of plants sold as novelties.
Scientific and cultural uses
Tree rings are an important method of dating in archeology and serve as a record of past climates. Basic biological research has often been done with plants, such as the pea plants used to derive Gregor Mendel's laws of genetics. Space stations or space colonies may one day rely on plants for life support. Plants are used as national and state emblems, including state trees and state flowers. Ancient trees are revered and many are famous. Numerous world records are held by plants. Plants are often used as memorials, gifts and to mark special occasions such as births, deaths, weddings and holidays. Plants figure prominently in mythology, religion and literature. The field of ethnobotany studies plant use by indigenous cultures which helps to conserve endangered species as well as discover new medicinal plants. Gardening is the most popular leisure activity in the U.S. Working with plants or horticulture therapy is beneficial for rehabilitating people with disabilities. Certain plants contain psychotropic chemicals which are extracted and ingested, including tobacco, cannabis (marijuana), and opium.
Negative effects
Weeds are plants that grow where people do not want them. People have spread plants beyond their native ranges and some of these introduced plants become invasive, damaging existing ecosystems by displacing native species. Invasive plants cause billions of dollars in crop losses annually by displacing crop plants, they increase the cost of production and the use of chemical means to control them affects the environment.
Plants may cause harm to people. Plants that produce windblown pollen invoke allergic reactions in people who suffer from hay fever. A wide variety of plants are poisonous. Several plants cause skin irritations when touched, such as poison ivy. Certain plants contain psychotropic chemicals, which are extracted and ingested or smoked, including tobacco, cannabis (marijuana), cocaine and opium, causing damage to health or even death.[21][22] Both illegal and legal drugs derived from plants have negative effects on the economy, affecting worker productivity and law enforcement costs.[23][24] Some plants cause allergic reactions in people and animals when ingested, while other plants cause food intolerances that negatively affect health.
See also
- Biosphere
- Botany
- Evolutionary history of plants
- Flower
- Forest
- Fruit
- Garden
- Gardening
- Greenhouse
- Houseplant
- List of poisonous plants
- Paleobotany
- Photosynthesis
- Plant cell
- Plant defense against herbivory
- Plant perception (paranormal)
- Plant perception (physiology)
- Rapid plant movement
- Tree
- Vegetable
- Vegetation
- Phytopathology
- ↑ Haeckel G (1866). Generale Morphologie der Organismen. Berlin: Verlag von Georg Reimer. pp. vol.1: i&ndash, xxxii, 1&ndash, 574, pls I&ndash, II, vol. 2: i&ndash, clx, 1&ndash, 462, pls I&ndash, VIII.
- ↑ Margulis, L. (1974). "Five-kingdom classification and the origin and evolution of cells". Evolutionary Biology. 7: 45–78.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Raven, Peter H., Ray F. Evert, & Susan E. Eichhorn, 2005. Biology of Plants, 7th edition. (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company). ISBN 0-7167-1007-2.
- ↑ Bremer, K. (1985). "Summary of green plant phylogeny and classification". Cladistics. 1: 369–385.
- ↑ Mishler, Brent D. (1985). "Transition to a land flora: phylogenetic relationships of the green algae and bryophytes". Cladistics. 1: 305–328. Unknown parameter
|coauthors=ignored (help)
- ↑ Mishler, Brent D. (1994). "Phylogenetic relationships of the "green algae" and "bryophytes"". Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 81: 451–483. Unknown parameter
|coauthors=ignored (help)
- ↑ Van den Hoek, C., D. G. Mann, & H. M. Jahns, 1995. Algae:An Introduction to Phycology. pages 343, 350, 392, 413, 425, 439, & 448 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ISBN 0-521-30419-9
- ↑ Van den Hoek, C., D. G. Mann, & H. M. Jahns, 1995. Algae:An Introduction to Phycology. pages 457, 463, & 476. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ISBN 0-521-30419-9
- ↑ Crandall-Stotler, Barbara. & Stotler, Raymond E., 2000. "Morphology and classification of the Marchantiophyta". page 21 in A. Jonathan Shaw & Bernard Goffinet (Eds.), Bryophyte Biology. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ISBN 0-521-66097-1
- ↑ Schuster, Rudolf M., The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America, volume VI, pages 712-713. (Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1992). ISBN 0-914-86821-7.
- ↑ Buck, William R. & Bernard Goffinet, 2000. "Morphology and classification of mosses", page 71 in A. Jonathan Shaw & Bernard Goffinet (Eds.), Bryophyte Biology. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ISBN 0-521-66097-1
- ↑ Gifford, Ernest M. & Adriance S. Foster, 1988. Morphology and Evolution of Vascular Plants, 3rd edition, page 358. (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company). ISBN 0-7167-1946-0.
- ↑ Taylor, Thomas N. & Edith L. Taylor, 1993. The Biology and Evolution of Fossil Plants, page 636. (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall). ISBN 0-13-651589-4.
- ↑ lnternational Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species:Summary Statistics
- ↑ Kenrick, Paul & Peter R. Crane. 1997. The Origin and Early Diversification of Land Plants: A Cladistic Study. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press). ISBN 1-56098-730-8.
- ↑ Smith, Alan R., Kathleen M. Pryer, E. Schuettpelz, P. Korall, H. Schneider, & Paul G. Wolf. (2006). "A classification for extant ferns". Taxon 55(3): 705-731.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Robbins, W.W., Weier, T.E., et al, Botany:Plant Science, 3rd edition , Wiley International, New York, 1965.
- ↑ Goyal, K., Walton, L. J., & Tunnacliffe, A. (2005). "LEA proteins prevent protein aggregation due to water stress". Biochemical Journal. 388 (Part , 1): 151 &ndash, 157. PMID 15631617. Unknown parameter
|quotes=ignored (help)
- ↑ Campbell, Reece, Biology, 7th edition, Pearson/Benjamin Cummings, 2005
- ↑ Bromeliad Phytotelmata[1]
- ↑ "cocaine/crack".
- ↑ "Deaths related to cocaine".
- ↑ "The social cost of illegal drug consumption in Spain".
Further reading
- General
- Evans, L. T. (1998). Feeding the Ten Billion - Plants and Population Growth. Cambridge University Press. Paperback, 247 pages. ISBN 0-521-64685-5.
- Kenrick, Paul & Crane, Peter R. (1997). The Origin and Early Diversification of Land Plants: A Cladistic Study. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 1-56098-730-8.
- Raven, Peter H., Evert, Ray F., & Eichhorn, Susan E. (2005). Biology of Plants (7th ed.). New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. ISBN 0-7167-1007-2.
- Taylor, Thomas N. & Taylor, Edith L. (1993). The Biology and Evolution of Fossil Plants. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-651589-4.
- Trewavas, A. (2003). Aspects of Plant Intelligence, Annals of Botany 92: 1-20.
- Species estimates and counts
- Prance, G. T. (2001). Discovering the Plant World. Taxon 50: 345-359.
- International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Species Survival Commission (2004). IUCN Red List of Threatened Species [2].
External links
- Tree of Life
- Answers to several questions from curious kids about plants
- Chaw, S.-M.; et al. (1997). "Molecular Phylogeny of Extant Gymnosperms and Seed Plant Evolution: Analysis of Nuclear 18s rRNA Sequences" (PDF). Molec. Biol. Evol. 14 (1): 56–68. Unknown parameter
|quotes=ignored (help)
- Interactive Cronquist classification
- Plant Picture Gallery
- Plant Photo Gallery of Japan - Flavon's Wild herb and Alpine plants
- Plant Resources of Tropical Africa
- PROTAbase
- Index Nominum Algarum
Botanical and vegetation databases
- e-Floras (Flora of China, Flora of North America and others)
- PlantFiles - 150,000 plants
- Australia
- Chilean plants at Chilebosque
- Flora Europaea
- FloraWeb - Flora of Central Europe
- Flora of North America
- Native Plant Information Network
- United States Department of Agriculture
- List of Japanese Wild Plants Online
- Meet the Plants-National Tropical Botanical Garden
- African Plants Initiative database
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Reading the great Ch'an Buddhist masters (Linji being the greatest) and wolves, because they're nature's greatest beings
Why I Practice
It's the only thing that has remained consistently challenging (now that I've memorized all the answers to "Trivial Pursuit"). It keeps me healthy, young and happy and it makes everything else easy.
Why I Teach
There's no better job on earth, that's why. When people tell me I've helped them to feel better, it's worth more than the money.