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trichocolea.bsky.social
Brad Scott
@trichocolea.bsky.social
2.9K followers 1.6K following 140 posts
Working with the Sloane Herbarium @QMULsed
& @NHM_London • HPS @stsucl (1980s) • Routledge (1990s) • publishing technologist • DH • bryophyte recorder, Sussex
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Reposted by Brad Scott
passeriform.bsky.social
‘Mosses and wandering lichens’, as Ruskin puts it in ‘The Poetry of Architecture’ (1837), ‘though beautiful, constitute a kind of beauty from which the ideas of age and decay are inseparable’.

This whole essay. I had no idea Victorians thought about lichen.

courtauld.ac.uk/research/res...
'Study of a Piece of Brick, to show Cleavage in Burnt Clay' a very detailed look at a piece of brick with moss and lichens, watercolor by John Ruskin, a Victorian English polymath whose Wikipedia article is quite something. It shows an irregular lump, probably about apple-sized, with dark red and brown inner surfaces and brighter bluish green and dark green mosses and lichens very carefully shown, textures like velvet and tiny leaves.
November 25, 2025 at 2:54 PM
trichocolea.bsky.social
And then....?
November 24, 2025 at 6:39 PM
trichocolea.bsky.social
I still can't believe that "expences" isn't the modern spelling, despite Word and many humans correcting me
November 19, 2025 at 5:17 PM
trichocolea.bsky.social
Do you know of any historiography on the occurrence of 'nerves' in plants, especially in German literature? There are of course still echoes of this with the 'nerves' in mosses. Thanks!
November 11, 2025 at 12:26 PM
trichocolea.bsky.social
What about Alan Garner?
November 8, 2025 at 6:54 PM