Stachys arvensis
Åkersyska

Eva Ekeblad, 2001

   The scan of the Field Woundwort is dated November first, and so is the snap of this thistly patch in the New Lawn, where the sample was taken (well, actually it's the other thistlepatch). It caught my eye among the Red Dead-nettles and Common Field Speedwells as something possibly different. A hairy Thing, a Red Dead-nettle not very red, leaves an enlargement of the Speedwell... When I scanned it I just called it värihäri (because it was).
   At that time there were so many other puzzling things from the New Lawn, more spectacular in size and appearance. I just forgot about it, never got around to sending that picture question to Erik. So here it is: found twice. First by me in the New Lawn and then by Erik Ljungstrand in my scan archives. Turns out it is a plant rarely seen in these parts. One of my findings that are Findings. A pity I didn't realize it at the time. But then, in a hyperweb like this, past mistakes can always be amended.

   This Finding illustrates something that I have observed. I may have mentioned it somewhere before: if you just spend enough time looking within the same small area, you will find something that is a Finding. Or perhaps I should say: look long enough at the trivialities and you will find something non-trivial hiding in their midst.
    Uhm... does that sound like an example of Zipf's Law? So that there is an inverse power law relation between the time spent looking and the triviality of the finding? I am grateful to Bill Barowy here, for reminding me that strictly speaking this relationship - the more of one thing the less of another - could be represented by many different mathematical functions - a linear function, a trigonometric function, an exponential function, and so on - and you would need data to distinguish which might be the best fit. My sense of it is, however, that it is at least not linear. I DO look a LOT and the surprises are VERY few.