Tuesday 27 May 2014

Lost and Found

Two pieces of good news over the long, rainy Bank Holiday weekend. One was that the lovely and vanishingly rare Fen Violet has been found again at Wicken Fen after a decade-long absence which had seemed final - rediscovered in the course of a routine plant audit, not of a specific search. The other cheering news was the discovery in the Congolese jungle of a peat bog the size of England that had somehow escaped the attention of the scientists until now. It's good to know - and salutary to remember - that there are still vast areas of the planet that even now are essentially uncharted territory (not to mention virtually the entire floor of the deep oceans, of which we know less than we do of the Moon). And, of course, the more you look, the more you see - and the more you see there is to see. There is always more...

3 comments:

  1. Now if you found a previously uncharted area the size of the Congo in England, then you'd start to worry! Usually these things are the size of Wales or Belgium.

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  2. Yes it's funny that - Wales seems to be universal measure of national smallness. Followed by, indeed, brave little Belgium...

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  3. Of course, if an area the size of the Congo was discovered here it might cheer Nigel Farrage up.

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