The Wonder of Plants

Once again, the haze and humidity have cleared, and I am left with a sharper brighter image, as though nature washed her windows clean. Every growing thing is renewed, and the early morning light smiles in bright yellow-green on the leaves of every tree and shrub.

Plants are remarkable things, and I've learned so much about them lately from all the research I've done for various online content articles. Here, in these woods, I'm literally surrounded by more varieties than I can count, and I doubt I'd be able to discover them all, considering how playful nature is in forever introducing new varieties into the landscape. From the tomato plants that I myself so lovingly put into the ground each year to the tallest pine that grows up on the ridge, all share growth characteristics all the while possessing features that are unique to each species.

Plants grow from the roots up, with the first cells originating beneath the soil, and it is almost magical the way they just seem to know to grow downward while the aerial parts of a plant know to grow upward. When a seed germinates, it simultaneously sends out both a fledgling rootlet and a pair of false leaves known as cotyledons. The root orients itself in the soil to seek out as much as moisture and as many nutrients as possible, while above the soil, the cotyledons eventually give way to the true leaves whose job it will be, with the sun's help, to manufacture food that the entire plant will need. Both parts of the new plant work in unison to support it toward the eventual goal of flower, fruit and seed production.

As I sat today looking at one of the tomato plants I have in a pot on the porch, I tried to imagine what is going on inside it. Is the process of cell development and enlargement actually visible, or does it happen in such infinitesimal degrees that it cannot be observed, and like so much else in nature, we simply have to believe that it's happening? For with each passing day, the plant's leaves are a bit higher against the railing and soon, they will surpass it entirely, at which point I'll have to tie it a little higher along the vine so it doesn't topple over. And then, without warning, I'll look one day and there will be the characteristic yellow blossoms indicating the spots where tiny green tomatoes will eventually appear, much to my eternal delight.

A plant grows in much the same way as do other living organisms-by cell production and enlargement. As new cells are formed, they fill with water drawn up into the plant through the roots. As they swell, they push the cells above them higher, causing the stem to elongate and grow. Some cells store water and others starches, and it is water that gives a plant its ability to stand upright and not keel over, a characteristic known in botanical circles as turgor or turgidity, which is the pressure the engorged cells exert on each other and on the stem walls. That's why a wilting plant seems to magically right itself once it's been given a drink, as the water floods the cells deep within the stem.

From the tiniest moss plant to the gigantic California redwoods, all plants follow this pattern of growth and development, each according to its own genetic code. Here, in these humble woods, I am reminded of that fact each time I look outside at my tomato plant and at the trees beyond, that never cease to amaze me in their variety, their tenacity and their eternal capacity to look ever upward.


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Summer Haze

During summer's warmer days, I gaze out at the woods around me as through a fog. Heat, particularly with high humidity and dew point, is tangible, settling on every growing thing like a veil. Some days, it's almost as though each leaf droops and sags beneath the burden, much as I do, as we both long for relief in the form of rain or a more northerly breeze. And when it comes, we rejoice together, they, lifting their faces once more toward the sun, and I lifting my hands, closing my eyes, and allowing the blessed relief to wash over me.

Even as the long hot summer days linger, I know of what they foretell. More and more, I'm hearing the sound of chainsaws as braver souls nearby begin work on their woodpiles even as the sun's merciless rays bear down upon them. For this is the best time to cut wood and leave it to dry while the days are still long, the heat intense, and the wind warm. More than halfway now through July, more than half of yet another year is behind us, and even these warm uncomfortable days do not linger quite as long as the earth slowly begins its downward tilt.

Summers are warmer, because the sun hits the surface of the earth in the Northern hemisphere more directly and for a longer period of time during each 24-hour period. Conversely, it's colder in the winter because the same rays strike the earth at a shorter more extreme angle, and the hours of daylight are fewer. None of this happens as a result of the earth's position in the galaxy but because its axis, which is relatively perpendicular during the warmer months, dips by about 23.5 degrees, orienting different parts of the earth toward the sun. After the Summer Solstice, or the first day of summer in the north, the earth gradually moves in its orbit in a counterclockwise path that eventually orients the southern hemisphere toward the sun, with a gradual progression toward an eastern orientation, or Winter Solstice, when all of North America and most of South America are experiencing winter.

In areas that experience the four seasons distinctly, it sometimes seems that one might last longer than another or that their progression from year to year isn't consistent, but that's not the case at all. Weather events have a lot to do with our perception of the length of the seasons, while, behind the scenes, all is progressing according to nature's schedule, one over which we have absolutely no control.

So though these warm days are draining and often uncomfortable, they never last forever, and I set my sights on the respites that nature provides us here in the north that other parts of the country aren't privy to. At some point, the wind always shifts from south to north, the haze clears and once again, each leaf and twig is visible in the sharp crisp light. It's a yearly progression, with each season unfolding from the preceding one, and each ending as imperceptibly as it began, their endings and beginnings lost beneath this endless canopy of trees and sky.


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