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A shrubbery! (mander.xyz)
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[-] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 75 points 1 month ago

shrubabbaby

shrubry

shurubaby

[-] xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 month ago

i love this comics so much

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 38 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

aren't herbs

What on Earth is that bird's definition of an "herb"? A pretty uncontroversial definition from Wikipedia:

Herbs generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant (either fresh or dried), while spices are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark, roots and fruits.

And what the goddamn hell is "true wood" supposed to distinguish? Do plants grow the faux wood that I can buy at Lowe's? Rosemary is a woody shrub and, like basil, is in the family Lamiaceae with a bunch of other herbs.

"Shrubs" and "herbs" are not mutually exclusive (and basil isn't a shrub – a woody perennial – anyway). wtaf is the logic here; there's pedantry, and then there's fucking nonsense pulled out of thin air.


Edit: Wait, is the comic talking about herbaceous plants (shortened in botany as “herbs”)? Because in that case, 1) that’s not news in botanical terms for rosemary, 2) basil is an herbaceous annual, 3) why did it single out rosemary and basil if it didn’t mean to imply a culinary sense, and 4) still what the hell did it mean by “true wood”? It’s simultaneously less and more confusing.

[-] waigl@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

And what the goddamn hell is “true wood” supposed to distinguish?

I suppose if it contains lignin, it's really wood, otherwise it just kinda looks like wood at best. If it's real wood, most animals, with a few exceptions here and there, cannot directly digest it.

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I suppose if it contains lignin, it’s really wood

I appreciate you trying to fill in the gaps that the comic leaves with its abject, ignorant nonsense masquerading as pedantry, but wood is more complicated than just the presence of lignin.

Otherwise, oops, wheat is wood.

[-] btsax@reddthat.com 35 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The other side of this coin is that the banana is the largest herb; the banana tree is the tallest plant that doesn't produce wood

Of course mixing up culinary and botany meanings deliberately is dumb and leads to people saying things like "a tomato is a fruit" and "a strawberry isn't a berry" those people can go produce their own wood if you know what I mean

[-] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That reminds me, I must go check if the oregano is ready to harvest.

Edit: I'll check again in two weeks

[-] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 month ago

To be honest people eat basil and rosemary leaves not the wood part. So the same could be said about bay leaves, no one bites the tree itself

[-] FuyuhikoDate@feddit.org 6 points 1 month ago

Wait... You guys dont bite trees?

[-] bridgeburner@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Didn't know we had beavers here on Lemmy

[-] als 19 points 1 month ago
[-] Shrubbery@piefed.social 18 points 1 month ago
[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

You must go to the tallest tree in these woods and cut it down. WITH . . . a haddock!

[-] fubarx@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago

Outstanding meme abuse.

[-] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

Rosemary does grow like a shrub if you let it. A regular size one.

[-] Gwyntale@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago
[-] FuyuhikoDate@feddit.org 3 points 1 month ago
[-] sem 3 points 1 month ago

I fear a storm is coming

[-] Zacryon@feddit.org 11 points 1 month ago

Strawberries are not berries (but aggregate accessory fruits). Cucumber, watermelon and pumpkin belong to the same family of plants. Tomatoes are fruit. Well botanically, vegetables do not exist anyway. Vegetables are a social construct. Also, wheat is a kind of grass. Isn't our world beautiful?

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago

How can vegetarians be real if our vegetables aren’t real?

[-] BanMe@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Now you're asking the questions they don't want you to ask

[-] flora_explora@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Vegetarians aren't real anyways because they still support mass murder of animals! (partly /s)

[-] jaybone@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

Just curious, how are they doing that?

[-] flora_explora@beehaw.org 2 points 1 month ago

Eating eggs -> financially supporting a system where male chicks get either immediately killed after birth or more rarely are later killed for their meat. Also it is supporting a system where chickens are bred to produce as many eggs as fast as possible, which means a life of torture to them

Drinking milk -> financially supporting a system where cows are continuously impregnated against their will and where their offspring is immediately taken from them and killed for their meat (I think this is done yearly). Also it is supporting a system where cows are bred to produce as much milk as fast as possible, which means a life of torture to them

There are certainly many more atrocities happening, but I'm trying not to think too often of that stuff

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[-] WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

It is beautiful, but you made it sound like Mexican food. It's all the same you can just do it differently and call it something else.

[-] flora_explora@beehaw.org 2 points 1 month ago

That wheat is a grass is even easier to understand than corn also is one. And don't forget bamboo, which can even grow into huge "trees" forming large bamboo forests!

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[-] waigl@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Wait, basil?

Rosemary, I get (and also thyme, btw), but basil? At best, the dried out stalks of a basil can look a bit woody, but that's true for a lot of plants.

[-] 0ops@piefed.zip 10 points 1 month ago

When Basil matures, especially after it flowers it gets pretty woody

[-] exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago

Yup, gardeners are encouraged to cut off the tops of basil so that it doesn't flower (and then it doesn't turn woody).

[-] TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

Basil I forgot about and dried:

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago

True wood? Wood was reinvented multiple times.

[-] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

isn't it all just the same genes responsible for wood-making, getting switched on and off repeatedly?

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)

Also, at least with germans coal deposits, they exists because bacteria/fungus first needed a few million years to learn to digest lignin.

[-] megopie@beehaw.org 5 points 1 month ago

So… are they spices? Like cinnamon?

[-] flora_explora@beehaw.org 2 points 1 month ago

This is a play on the two meanings of herb. Of course they are still "herbs" in the culinary sense. But in a botanical sense you would classify plants into categories like herb(aceous plant), sub-shrub, shrub, tree, vine, liana, etc. This doesn't affect culinary names though.

[-] megopie@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago

Yes, but consider that if there is bark, cinnamon is bark.

[-] hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Everyone in here talking about science and my stupid ass thought this was a reference to the song Scarborough fair

[-] JCSpark@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

I feel compelled to ~~advertise~~ credit this artist. They have a ton of great works, and deserve the ~~sales~~ recognition. Support your local artists, and make sure people know who they are.

False Knees

You cab find the other socials on their page.

[-] Kanda@reddthat.com 4 points 1 month ago

Say 'what' one more time motherfucker

[-] amniote@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Basilicum makes wood, obviously.

Herb

[-] sirico@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago

I thought shrubs were defined from multiple stem growth

[-] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

But is maple syrup a herb, or an herb?

this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
790 points (100.0% liked)

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