Some of you may know that I have a fossil tattooed on my foot. Well, a month ago I decided to add to the collection with something more botanically themed. I'd thought about a fern (since I do like my ferns), but I didn't want the first reaction to be "But you're not from New Zealand", and I had the devil of a job finding ideas that wouldn't look like a ponga. I considered a Wollemia nobilis, but knew I didn't want anything big (and it would have to be pretty big to be recognisable as a Wollemia).
And then I found this teeny tiny little thumbnail of a Metasequoia glyptostroboides on the Kew website:
It wasn't available any bigger, so I had to try my best to smooth the image and print it off, before taking it to my rather bewildered tattooist at Ouch! in Brentford. He cursed under his breath, he had to pause while I felt faint with the pain (the wrist is PAINFUL), but somehow he managed to put in detail that hadn't even been in the original:
I adore it. I need to purchase several large snug-fitting bracelets to wear given the nature of my work from September onwards, but I figure if the students see it, it's an opportunity to talk about plant evolution and "living fossils" - Metasequoia was thought to have become extinct in the Miocene period (23-5Ma).
So I want to see your plant- or gardening-related tattoos. I saw Gayla's on You Grow Girl and thought it was freakin' awesome. Botanical illustrations lend themselves so well to being inked on (I have a friend with "Stargazer" lilies all over her back), and there aren't nearly enough of them on Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium in and amongst all the formulae!
And then I found this teeny tiny little thumbnail of a Metasequoia glyptostroboides on the Kew website:
It wasn't available any bigger, so I had to try my best to smooth the image and print it off, before taking it to my rather bewildered tattooist at Ouch! in Brentford. He cursed under his breath, he had to pause while I felt faint with the pain (the wrist is PAINFUL), but somehow he managed to put in detail that hadn't even been in the original:
I adore it. I need to purchase several large snug-fitting bracelets to wear given the nature of my work from September onwards, but I figure if the students see it, it's an opportunity to talk about plant evolution and "living fossils" - Metasequoia was thought to have become extinct in the Miocene period (23-5Ma).
So I want to see your plant- or gardening-related tattoos. I saw Gayla's on You Grow Girl and thought it was freakin' awesome. Botanical illustrations lend themselves so well to being inked on (I have a friend with "Stargazer" lilies all over her back), and there aren't nearly enough of them on Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium in and amongst all the formulae!
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