Donner MacRae

Hans Quistorff wrote: Yes the green gage are best for fresh eating. (...) The Italian prune plums are equaly good to eat fresh but also the easiest to split and dry.

Concur. =] My vote goes to Italian Prune.

This may be a useful doc for those evaluating Sea Buckthorn varieties:

http://culturinnov.qc.ca/sites/culturinnov.qc.ca/files/fichiers-attaches/Cultivars_argousiers.pdf

Apart from being in French, there are some good comparison tables, images, and so forth.

As an experiment, I used Google Translate to produce an English translation (attached). Unfortunately, not all of the original formatting survived - in particular, the headings for tables such as 'Fruit Maturity - Quebec - 2012' and 'Taste Properties' are tiny/easily missed.

(Not that I wouldn't've fixed it for y'all - I refuse to be Adobe's bitch.)

Thaw is almost done, and Winterling (Eranthis hyemalis) is blooming here in Sherwood Forest. Daily highs crossing 50 now and then. From here, the Awakening will accelerate. Soon, the buds on the native Blue Elders will be fattening...

✨New Talent Showcase✨

For those rocking it alone on Valentine's Day B]

A few add'l observations on the subject of 'adaptation':

What's good for the species in the long run ain't always good for the individual in the short run!

What may very well be an advantage at the species level may be maladaptive at the individual level.

That said... The very terms adaptive/maladaptive pre-suppose a larger context.
The set of external conditions which defines that context is itself subject to change. The idea that something is a disorder/ailment is at times highly dependent on normalcy bias centered around present-context.
Which perhaps is just another way of saying, an 'adaptation' is not really a complete thing in and of itself. Every adaptive trait is an adaptation to something.

For most of the history of what we call the autism phenomenon, it seems like autism (when taken as a set of behaviors) would've been viewed as more maladaptive than adaptive at the individual level. But there's that pesky 'black swan' every 500 years or so when the context suddenly changes; when half the population of Europe dies off in a plague, for example - or when groupthink dictates that running off the edge of a cliff is the optimal course of action.

[For reference, Black Swan Theory was developed by Nassim Taleb to describe "the disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology."]

If you happen to live at the cusp of such an inflection point...  The simple 'inability to hang' becomes adaptive.  Albeit, temporarily. =]

Sergio Cunha wrote:I wonder if autistic people is a nature's way of keeping the species alive in case of high mortality epidemic/pandemic. Since autistic people tend to live alone, it seems they're less vulnerable to highly contagious virus or bacteria.

To my way of thinking, there are two distinct/separable propositions here.

1] Will autistic people, by virtue of being 'loners', have a higher likelihood of surviving high mortality events such as epidemics/pandemics (and therefore of 'keeping the species alive' by re-populating in the wake of such events)?

2] Is the autism phenomenon Nature's work, or is it more like a fortuitous accident/windfall event created by something UN-natural - e.g., increasing exposure to various toxins which are themselves products of our technological civilization (which might well be a one-off event)?

Some research on slime molds suggests it is advantageous to have some 'loners' in your population:


Evolution selects for 'loners' that hang back from collective behavior—at least in slime molds

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-evolution-loners-behaviorat-slime-molds.html

(originals)

Look at it like a political office, and make a run for it.

(originals)

Maybe you should make like a librarian and book.
Or - make like Usain, and Bolt.

Me, I'm gonna make like pectin, and jam.