[Sacred Succulents] Plant Auction Fundraiser, updates, Baobab evolution

[Sacred Succulents]

	     [Note: do not respond to this email, use benkamm at monitor.net  ] 
   
          Greetings,     
      It's taken us half a year longer than anticipated, but: 
                                                                      
   The first Plant Auction-Fundraiser of 2024 is now underway!        
                      See partway down our homepage for the auction
terms and listings: https://sacredsucculents.com/#auctionPlease read
the full terms before bidding.Plants are for US bidders only, yet the
auction Seed and Book offering_s __are open to international
bidding_!Know  that auction purchases directly fund essential nursery
repairs and renovations as  well as our continual research and
conservation work. Due to ongoing adversities, a _number of plants
will only  be available via auction for some time, and many of these
only as a single offering_. _All bids should be directed to our other
email:_  benkamm at monitor.netThe auction closes this Friday, July 12 at
6:00pm Pacific Standard Time.__                                  
                 The SPECIMEN PLANT LIST has been updated for July
with select items on sale:
https://sacredsucculents.com/#specimen-plant-list
            BOOKS: https://sacredsucculents.com/#books     BOTANICAL  
            PRODUCTS: https://sacredsucculents.com/#products
__ 
	We are finally  experiencing some cooler weather after a couple weeks
of extreme heat.  These sudden heat spikes have been hard on plants
here, the latest highs  actually sunburned some of our _Trichocereus_!
The heat has also delayed our shipping schedule; currently expect
orders to ship about 1-3 weeks _after_ we receive your payment.

	Note: Sacred Succulents is currently operating at reduced capacity,
we are still not taking seed & PDF catalog orders.   

	__ A tale of life's resilience and fragility:
   In a reversal of the long held belief that the Malvaceous Baobab   
   tree (_Adansonia_ spp.) originated on mainland Africa and      
later dispersed to and diversified on Madagasar -- a new study [
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07447-4#Abs1       ]
suggests Baobabs actually originated on Madagascar then      
dispersed (via their buoyant pods and the Indian Ocean gyre) to      
mainland Africa and north-west Australia (though a fully      
satisfactory story of the spread of _Adansonia digitata_       across
thousands of miles of Africa, nearly the entire continent,       is
lacking). All 6 of the wondrous Madagascar species of Baobab      
(threatened to highly endangered) are anachronisms that likely      
evolved with extinct giant lemurs as their prime dispersal agents     
 -- such as sloth lemurs (_Archaeoindris_ & _Palaeopropithecus      
_spp_._) and koala lemurs (_Megaladapis_ spp.). [Up       to
gorilla-size, these huge lemurs began going extinct around 2000      
years ago, shortly after humans settled on the island, though some    
  species survived until at least 1000 years ago and possibly as      
recently as 500 years ago. See      
https://www.livescience.com/giant-koala-lemur-family-tree.html       &
   
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2020/june/only-known-drawing-of-extinct-giant-sloth-lemur-found-in-cave.html
A side note: Beat writer William S. Burroughs had a profound affection
for lemurs; one our favorite Burroughs stories, _Ghost         of
Chance_, is about a Richard Evans Schultes-like explorer       in
Madagascar who eats some psychoptic plant and has visions of      
lemur evolution, including what could-have-been if certain family     
branches had not been hunted to their end...] __
	Gratitude! 
	Ben Kamm &           family
	Sacred Succulents: Rare           & Endangered Beneficial Plants &
Seeds
         Conservation of Resilient Biodiversity through              
Propagation, Dissemination and Education
           PO Box             781
             Sebastopol, CA 95473 USA
             http://www.sacredsucculents.com           
	We do not take Paypal               or other online payments. Still
just cash, check or money               order to our PO box. 
                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~       

	MICROCOSMS: A                   Homage to Sacred Plants of the
Americas
         A stunning hidden dimension of plants revealed through
confocal         microscopy.
           Ben Kamm is a contributing researcher and photographer to
this           unique science-art project.
           His commentary on the project - 
https://www.microcosmssacredplants.org/commentary/ben-kamm/
           His article on the Andean keystone tree _Polylepis_        
-               
https://www.microcosmssacredplants.org/plant/polylepis-spp/       
                  If             you wish to be removed from this
list, please unsubscribe             the same you signed up:
http://lists.sonic.net/mailman/listinfo/sacredsucculents
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/sacredsucculents/attachments/20240709/359bcef8/attachment.htm>