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andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Andrew Hipp
@andrewlhipp.bsky.social
3.6K followers 3.6K following 1.1K posts
Plant systematist, herbarium director, naturalist, in the Chicago suburbs; posts reflect my views, not my employer's.

Recent book: Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species & the Tree of Life

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo236998258.html
Posts Replies Media Videos
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Charlie Harper mosaic "Web of Life" and detail (Io moth, Pacific starfish, woodcock, bullfrog, redbeard sponge), 81 organisms in total. Miami University Department of Biology this past week.
November 9, 2025 at 2:21 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Sugar maple sea, Maple Grove Forest Preserve this evening.
November 7, 2025 at 10:55 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Moon this morning, trail along Four Mile Creek, Miami University (with barred owls wooing in the background)
November 6, 2025 at 11:37 AM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Maple Grove Forest Preserve this morning: sugar maples, yellow; waterleaf (probably Hydrophyllum appendiculatum), still green; sugar maple seed lodged in a hole in a fallen ash; puffballs.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/324550114 https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/324550118 https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/324550124
November 2, 2025 at 5:58 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Not to sound like a Luddite, but the auto-complete feature of VSCode in whatever prose I happen to be working on bugs and worries me. I mute it, but until I do, it chugs along in the background (with millions of other computers), gobbling up resources and draining creativity.

Muting it again now.
Visual Studio Code completing text for me, suggesting what I ought to think next. The particular text is unimportant (for this point). What concerns me is the insidious erosion of creativity and clear thinking, the late-night or hasty-writing decision to say, "yes, that will do" and hit the tab key and you're off to the races. And later, you forget that you failed to think. Worse: you forget (or fail to notice) that you made positive a decision _not_ to think, to outsource your thinking. This is everywhere now. We have to be vigilant against the temptation to sequester our thoughts to questions about which we think, "my mind will do the most good here," all the while allowing ourselves to be hemmed into domains where the thinking just comes more easily.
October 30, 2025 at 1:53 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
October light on swamp white oaks, @mortonarboretum.bsky.social East Woods this evening.
October 29, 2025 at 11:00 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Ginkgo, east border of Garfield Park this morning
October 28, 2025 at 1:25 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Witch-hazel blooming this morning at Starved Rock State Park.

www.inaturalist.org/observations...
October 26, 2025 at 4:27 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
A magnificent swamp white oak, floodplain of Salt Creek, Fullersburg Woods Forest Preserve this morning.
October 25, 2025 at 2:29 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Sunrise and mist over Salt Creek this morning.
October 25, 2025 at 2:27 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Frosty cordgrass morning, tallgrass prairie on the east side of @mortonarboretum.bsky.social

www.inaturalist.org/observations...
October 24, 2025 at 1:32 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Venus (I believe) over the BNSF tracks this morning. Downers Grove.
October 24, 2025 at 1:11 AM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
My colleague AP bio teacher @jeffgrantscience.bsky.social in @science.org (10/9/25), on the now-shuttered climate.gov: "I always provide [students] with the latest research."

By contrast, Donald Trump on climate change: "the biggest con job ever perpetrated." Plus side? Jeff is the one teaching.
October 24, 2025 at 12:55 AM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Clouds over Lake Michigan this morning, from the Roosevelt CTA Station.
October 24, 2025 at 12:44 AM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Peromyscus from the prairie, photographed 5 yrs ago.
www.inaturalist.org/observations...
October 20, 2025 at 11:10 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
White snakeroot, wild ginger, severed sugar maple nursing elm seedlings and hosting a happy, healthy poison ivy. Maple Grove Forest Preserve this afternoon.
October 20, 2025 at 9:01 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
A near-perfect Friday collecting at Warren Woods Ecological Field Station, University of Chicago, with @mortonarboretum.bsky.social Team Herbarium.

Featured: R Mohn, L Worcester, B Kim, C Rodriguez, E Bretl, skunk cabbage, beechdrops.

warrenwoods.bsd.uchicago.edu/about/
marramcollaborative.com
October 20, 2025 at 4:55 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Sign up for @laymonstera.bsky.social's free ASPT @amsocplanttaxon.bsky.social webinar, "Phylogenomics and macroevolution of a florally diverse Neotropical plant clade," featuring phylogenomics, biogeography, niche & pollinator evolution!

us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

@tropicalbotany.bsky.social
October 15, 2025 at 10:23 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Evening snack time, The Morton Arboretum. @mortonarboretum.bsky.social
October 13, 2025 at 10:50 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
A clear illustration of at least one reason why inferences from macroevolutionary (Ornstein-Uhlenbeck) adaptation models don't reliably predict microevolution.

Schluter D. 2024. Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society 3: kzae016.

doi.org/10.1093/evol...
Figure 3. A, a hypothetical adaptive landscape with multiple adaptive peaks (+) oriented along a corridor, some of which are occupied by species (grey ellipses). Contours represent population mean fitness as a function of population mean in two traits. The direction of maximum genetic variation within species (gmax) is indicated by an arrow. The heavy dashed line indicates the major direction of the corridor of adaptive peaks. I assume the hypothetical species occupying the landscape are broadly sympatric (otherwise adaptive peaks from different regions would need to be superimposed somehow). B, the OU stationary distribution or ‘surface’ estimated from the means of the five species in A superimposed on the same adaptive landscape. Species means are indicated by filled circles. Contours indicate probability density of the fitted bivariate Gaussian OU distribution. The grand mean is indicated by θ. The stationary distribution was estimated using the mvMORPH package (Clavel et al. 2015) in R 4.3.2 assuming a random phylogeny for the five species.
October 13, 2025 at 1:44 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
A small sample of oak heroes who have had a disproportionate influence on my thinking and work, from Mexico, France, and the U.S.

Names in the alt text; from the International Oak Society meeting last week in Oaxaca.

Join www.internationaloaksociety.org today!
Top row (L to R): Maricela Rodriguez Acosta; Hernando Rodríguez Correa; Antoine Kremer; Victoria Sork; Paul Manos bottom row (L to R): Alan Whittemore, Andrew Hipp, Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Antonio Gonzalez Rodriguez, Susana Valencia-A.
October 13, 2025 at 2:42 AM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
My last letter for Poetry Clinic, responding to the question, "what is an individual?"

poetryclinic.org/what-is-an-i...
Millipede in moss (Callicladium?). Santa Catarina Ixtepeji, Oaxaca, 11 Oct 2025. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/320137561
October 13, 2025 at 1:49 AM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Gems from Sierra Norte de Oaxaca, Friday: Conopholis (@skunkcabbages.bsky.social), dahlia, butterwort, witch's butter.
Conopholis alpina (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/320141134) Dahlia (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/320147537) Pinguicula orchidioides (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/320146821) Witch's butter, jelly fungus (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/320141138)
October 12, 2025 at 5:59 PM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
First afternoon in Oaxaca... International Oak Society meeting starts tomorrow night!
October 5, 2025 at 1:50 AM
andrewlhipp.bsky.social
Silver-spotted skipper on purpletop vervain. The Morton Arboretum this afternoon. @mortonarboretum.bsky.social
October 4, 2025 at 2:31 AM