botanyshitposts:

outside the herbarium there’s a display case of plant fossils and one of them is part of the upper (smaller) part of what looks like a lepidodendron trunk and it’s like a foot across and just….mindboggling to look at and i really want to somehow get the keys to that case and get a specimen of some species of isoetes (the only living remote descendant of that kind of prehistoric plant) from the herbarium and take a picture of them together to show what 300 million years of natural selection and evolution does. its so fucking funny. like whenever i look at it i have to laugh bc like…..could u imagine once being the dominant plant type on earth….being the foundation of swamps of megaflora dinosaur plants across the globe….and then having those swamps dry up and ur descendants are literally like 4 inches tall bc only the smaller species survived. it’s so fucking funny. it is. i feel like i shouldnt laugh at them like i do when i pass this fucking fossil in the hallway bc its tragic but god……

……100 feet —> 4 inches……