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This paper grows flowers: A lovely idea: handmade paper that's been embedded with plantable wildflower seeds that will grow in potting soil.

Blank printable seeded papers -- the color of the paper reflects the eventual bloom color of the seeds, plus a petaled assortment -- start at .79 cents for a 3-inch by 4-inch sheet, less in bulk. Wedding invitations and birth announcements seem to be a hot use, as is -- far less comprehensible -- business cards. ("Bury my number?")

They're from Botanical Paperworks of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

"UNDER 250,000 IMMENSE GLASS BELLS THIS GROUP OF WOMEN WAR WORKERS IS HELPING TO RAISE FOOD FOR GREAT BRITAIN." -- National Geographic, 1918
The scene is Burhill Intensive Gardens, at Horsham, where, in compliance with the British Government's instructions, every available inch of space is being utilized to supply British troops and civilian population with food. Under this sea of bells a quarter of a million heads of lettuce are cultivated.

In the pre-Christmas hubbub, I forgot to pass this along. At Inventing Green ("the lost history of American clean tech") by Alexis Madrigal, a lovely riff about (WWI) wartime tech, 250,000 Tiny Greenhouses, Each Containing One Head of Lettuce .

Judson Welliver tells us, "Everybody knows how British women have taken the places of men in industry, but nobody who has not seen can understand."

Indeed the photos from the article are stunning. Hearty British "lumberjanes" sawing and cutting. A misty meadow of sheep attended by a "shepherdess". The names themselves are strange, sort of like women's college basketball team mascots: The Lady Vols, or what have you.

The most shocking photo, though, shows British women tending to 250,000 bell jars, each growing a single head of lettuce. These mini-greenhouses allowed the British to keep producing vegetables at a time when their fields would have normally lain dormant.

What follows is a lovely meditation on rediscovering cloches and... coddling lettuce.

The blog bills itself as "research notes for a forthcoming book by Alexis Madrigal, Wired.com staff writer energy and science."

Here's a very large version of the photo.

Olde words: Exactly half the words so far are obsolete.

Welcome to Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, a word-a-day dictionary from Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (London: Printed by W. Strahan for J. and P. Knapton, [1755]), one of the first dictionaries to document the daily working life of the English language.

In celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of Johnson's birth in 1709, a definition from the first edition of the dictionary will be posted each day for readers' lexiconic delight, beginning on January 1, 2009. Words will be taken from the annotated proof copy of the first edition, extra-illustrated with Johnson's and his helpers' manuscript corrections, which is held in the collections of Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Light reading from Mental Floss:

The Stories Behind 11 Famous Cocktails; The Secrets Behind Your Favorite Toys