Commonplace Commentary

Sulzbacheromyces sinensis  (中华丽烛衣). A basidiolichen with erect ochre fruiting bodies and a dark green crust which slowly turned grey. It was...

 WHAT the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing Polonius’s advice to his son upon the same subject into my head, and th...

Longhorn beetle frass (I am unsure which species) on a willow tree at Taozi lake. These beetle larvae due a fair bit of damage in spite of t...

The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity. The omniscient historian would display the masterpieces,...

Asian Longhorned Beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis, 光肩星天牛). Similar to anoplophora glabripennis but possible to distinguish by the tubercles ...

Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406), 'Conquestio Phillidis', 137-156: gentibus optatam pacem sacra Palladis arbor    nuntiet et populis o...

Citrus Longhorn Beetle (Anoplophora chinensis, 华星天牛). The larvae are pests, and quite destructive to local trees, but the adults are large i...

To talk in publick, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire, and answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar.  He wanders a...

Campsosternus auratus (丽叩甲). A large metallic click beetle, the adults are fairly common in the summer.

 [...] and the prose is clotted with sentences like this one: “The elaboration of the demonstrative makes possible the comprehension of the ...

Mark Pattison,'Oxford Studies' in Essays , ed. by Henry Nettleship, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1889), I, 415-494 (p. 420): A u...

Blushing Wood Mushroom (Agaricus sylvaticus, 林地蘑菇). Beautiful pair of mushrooms growing last June on Yuelu Mountain. There were young, 2-3cm...

David Damrosch, We Scholars: Changing the Culture of the University (Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 1...

Some species of pyralid snout moth caterpillar, though I could not discern the species. I found on Yuelu Mountain last July and I should hav...