It’s not easy being green
There are only so many moments in a lifetime, and lack of time
forces even the most curious among us to narrow our focus.
For that reason, I’ve devoted myself to the study of birds in my
trips afield. Plants continue to fascinate me, but my relationship
to them is that of a layperson.
It’s not easy being green
There are only so many moments in a lifetime, and lack of time forces even the most curious among us to narrow our focus.
For that reason, I’ve devoted myself to the study of birds in my trips afield. Plants continue to fascinate me, but my relationship to them is that of a layperson.
It’s a shame, but it’s a choice that I’m comfortable living with.
It’s a shame because the diversity of plant life around us is so vast, so stunning, that most of us ignore it. “Plants” means everything from the lichens that give Pinnacles National Monument much of its color to the towering redwoods that populate our coastal mountains.
A cousin of mine served a stint as leader of the California Native Plant Society. A brilliant man, he’s devoted himself to plants through his career and his academic work. He once led us on a field trip to the southernmost regions of San Benito County, and it was a day so rich in discovery that we still talk of it more than 20 years later.
The Native Plant Society field trips, I’m told, are quite an experience. Imagine a troop of aging adults on their bellies, reference books in hand, puzzling through the foliage.
My own knowledge of plant life is mostly limited to what I can safely eat. The late author Euell Gibbons brought my knowledge of plants to me.
But wild plants deserve our attention and our fascination.
So much of our landscape is dominated by plants that we introduced. Eucalyptus green our skyline. Even deep in the woods, forget-me-not, periwinkle and Himalayan blackberry compete for space with plants that are part of the natural landscape.
That’s not always a bad thing for those of us who are not purists. As boys, my brother and I would gather blackberries until we had enough for our grandmother to assemble a cobbler. Non-native invasive species indeed! These unattractive, thorny vines were the source of unadulterated pleasure.
Because plants have occupied Earth for so long and because so many of them reproduce rapidly, they have adapted to fill many niches. Every school child knows that redwoods have a thick coat of bark that resists fire. We all must have once stood in the hollow of a tree that was scorched by fire but continued to thrive.
Near the most remote corner of Butano State Park stands the Chimney Tree, a redwood completely hollowed by fire. Standing within its column and looking up, a tiny window of daylight shines. Around its rim are several new trunks, growing from the ashes of the parent.
This year, with its dearth of rainfall, many wild plants are stressed, and as a result are covered in mantles of dodder. Dodder is a parasitic plant, one that cannot feed itself through photosynthesis. A mass of yellow to orange filaments engulfs host plants as the leafless dodder thrives.
It’s interesting, even for those of us who cannot name all the plants we see, to consider why plants are where they are. In the dry landscape and thin soil of the chaparral, plants show adaptations that allow them to save water. Some have hard, glossy leaves that look like they are varnished. Many more show pale foliage, often covered in fine hairs that capture the ephemeral moisture of early morning overcast.
Buckeyes suck abundant moisture when it is available, then shed their leaves in mid-summer to start an early dormancy.
The coastal dunes of Monterey Bay are home to a very specialized community. It is one that demands that observers do get on their bellies. While the atmosphere around a standing observer is often cool, moist and breezy, life at the surface of the dunes is profoundly different.
Little air moves. The sand offers scant nutrition, with a smidgen of organic matter brought through wrack brought by the wind. The salty air is still and surprisingly hot. Wind above constantly rearranges the landscape, burying some plants and exposing others.
And the plants thrive. They, in turn, shelter snowy plovers and a variety of insects. In the hollows sheltered from the wind, the tracks of beetles stitch a fascinating pattern through the landscape. It is a unique universe, one adapted elegantly to some of the most inhospitable conditions on the planet.
How wonderful.
