Reply to comment

In making our new observations, we started with the same classification system from the first group's voyage to Planet Farther--> Plant--- structure---height---shape---color and from this we have group A, B, C, D and E.

Under A, we looked at the skinny brown tubes that extended off of larger/thicker brown tubes. One was named Amelia, and her tube was curvy, a lighter brown, with white specks covering her. The other tube, Alexander, was much straighter, darker, and rougher in texture (and attitude!). We also looked at their flat, wide green pieces. Alexander's had a serated edge and the other was much smoother. Also, the serated green piece had small, geometric groupings/unit throughout its surface. Amelia's had a smoother green piece and also had these groupings, but they were in much larger groups. Thus, based on these differences, we observed both Amelia and Alexander.

Under B, we found Billy Bob. He consisted of needle shaped entities, was shorter than both Amelia and Alexander, and his green pieces were more heavily concentrated. This time, we observed that Billy Bob's needles were 1.5 cm in height and about 2mm in width with narrowing at the tip. Unlike Amelia or Alexander, there were no groupings in Billy Bob's green pieces.

Under C, we found two new specimens. Starting with the one previously observed, Colin, we still foundhe contained small leaves and was totally green. However, under closer inspection, he also appeared waxy, and had no groupings or vertical lines. Also, among Colin lived a purple growth- more specifically, its pieces were purple and its tube was green- hopefulyl he is not sick! A new specimen discovered was Cindy-Lou, who was a lighter green color, very thin shaped and not nearly as heavy as Colin. Her seratations acted as dividers between groups of green parts. Also, her tubular extension felt fuzy, possibly due to what looks like little white threads coming off of it. Finally, we discovered a third specimen under C, named Christopher. His tubular extension's were extremely thin- about .5mm in width and 5cm in height. His flat green pieces on the top were 1 x1.5cm, rounded into an almost circular form. These green pieces also did not have any of the groupings found in A.

Under D, there were thin, movable, freestanding green strips. The first was Daniel, who was 21cm in height and 3mm in width. He contained vertical lines. The second was Delilah, and she was tubular and thin, and approx. 26cm in height and 1mm in width. At her highest point, she had fuzy, less than 1/10 of a mm brown strands, that came out of oval, green balls. Finally, we found Devon who was wild- spiky, composed of several different shoots, and on top of Devon was bumpy, pod-like extentsions. ]

Under E, we have, all by herself, Eve. Eve is fury, dark brown and green,very small- she is almost a part of the ground at about 2mm in height.

So, overall size does matter! The smaller the scale, the easier it was to observe and note differences, which led us to Amelia, Alexander, Billy Bob, Colin, Cindy Lou, Christopher, Delilah, Devon, Daniel and Eve! Using just the naked eye, it was harder for the previous group to discern all of Planet Farther's specimens. Even more, it was harder for them to see all the characteristics of each specimen. In looking to the future, maybe new explorers will see even more than we were able to today!