Today we celebrate the Scottish botanist who is remembered for the phenomenon known as Brownian Motion. We'll also learn about the woman remembered as the Queen of the Traditional English Country Garden. We’ll have a little mini-class on Mistletoe and the etymology of its name. We’ll listen to a verse from a garden writer and forager who grows wild plants during the winter. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book that features a dozen gardens of an incredible modern garden designer. And then we’ll wrap things up with a century-old article that shared a new way to water plants.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Curated Garden News 6 Healthy Winter Vegetables That Don’t Require a Whole Lot of Space To Grow | Well + Good | Emily Laurence   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events December 21, 1773 Today is the birthday of Scottish botanist Robert Brown. Robert made important contributions to botany and (science in general) through his pioneering use of the microscope. In particular, Robert is best known for being the first to notice the natural continuous movement of minute particles. Today we call that phenomenon of movement Brownian Motion. Now how did Robert come up with this? Well, for his 1827 experiment, Robert looked through his microscope at pollen immersed in water, and he started to notice subtle movements of the pollen - even though the water was still. He's what he wrote about it, “These motions… arose neither from currents in the fluid, nor from its gradual evaporation, but belonged to the particle itself” Now, at the time, Brown was unable to explain why the particles moved. It wasn’t until 1905 that Einstein was able to understand the cause of Brownian motion fully. Einstein suggested that this motion was due to the movement of water particles - in essence, little atoms in the water that were bumping into the pollen. And I thought you'd get a kick out of this: Einstein also famously said,  "If I could remember the names of all these particles, I’d be a botanist." Today, Brownian Motion helps explain the "spin" from black holes.   Robert Brown also coined the term nucleus in living cells. In Latin, the term nucleus means "little nut." Robert Brown was the first person to recognize the difference between angiosperms (flowering plants) and gymnosperms (non-flowering plants like conifers). And houseplant enthusiasts will appreciate knowing that Robert named the Hoya plant genus after his friend and fellow botanist Thomas Hoy who was also a gardener for the Duke of Northumberland.   Now, Robert also worked closely with Ferdinand Bauer - one of the world’s most accomplished natural history artists. Together they joined Captain Matthew Flinders on a ship called Investigator. The Flinders expedition was the first to circumnavigate Australia. With the assistance of Peter Good, who was hunting for viable seeds and live plant