Sunday drive

I decided to test-drive my new eco-friendly truck- I call it the "Environmentor"


Just kidding-- don't even ask!

News from the non-green-thumbed botanist

Spring has sprung on my bathroom counter. Actually, it's late winter, but nonetheless, roots are growing
in happy synchronized harmony.

Why is it spring? I'm really not sure. I'm sure it has to do with dormancy, the protective hesitation of seeds (and bulbs) that requires some sort of cue to grow. This pause makes sure that the seed grows at the most opportune time, say, after the winter, not just in a random spurt of hot weather in October, after a fire, etc.

So back to my bathroom counter. About 3 days after Christmas, along with a wiser party (who should surely know better!), we put some bulbs in a glass jar with polished stones and water, hoping to have a nice little jar of sprouting bulbs and flowers in a few weeks.

Weeks passed, then months, and nothing happened. Of course, we'd chosen a variety that needed a period of cold in order to sprout. However, out-of-the-blue, within the last week, 4 bulbs have simultaneously sprouted roots. How is this possible? First one sprouted roots (and I shouted in joy from the toilet, causing some confusion in the household), then another 3 days later, and then 2 others I noticed today!

Warm weather? Well, they are in a temperature-controlled house, between 68-78 degrees every day. Light? they've been in the near-darkness for about a month in the bathroom (on advice from a friend). PH? I can't imagine the pH has changed- but possibly after the root-breaking of one, there was some sort of signal to the other bulbs.

We'll see what happens! More soon!

Seeing

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."

William Blake

This week, a New York Times editorial, "A Track in the Snow"
brought that poem back to mind.

I was walking in my dog in the park with my iPod on yesterday and
realized that I needed to shut it off. There was so much I was
missing, or rather, it was the silence itself that I needed to
pay attention to.

Normally this walk is a decompression time. Of course, it usually
takes 10 minutes or so for the fresh air to infiltrate my brain.
I walk until my breath starts to normalize, my to-do list stops running over in my
head, and I start to see patterns and processes of nature. If I'm wound up enough,
usually these thoughts run back to my research and classes, but at least I know that
I've been grounded again; the models and experiments and hypotheses have had a chance
to rub up against the truth of what is around me.

On a daily basis, I could only hope to see "eternity in a grain of sand." For now I'm
content if by the time that my earlobes are beginning to feel the burn of the wind,
my eyes are following the line of the hills, noticing the emergence of spring.

Tomato, the fruit

Last weekend, an irresistible opportunity for botany outreach presented itself. A local NPR radio show about construction was light-heartedly asking viewers whether tomatoes were a fruit or a vegetable. While this is a funny question to a popular audience, as our modern nutritional categories are pretty arbitrary and normal people don't consider this on a day-to-day basis, but this is sort of a non-question to a biologist.
I was listening on my radio at home, and it was about five minutes until the show was over, and a caller came up with a answer that offered a seemingly clear-cut answer to this question. The caller announced that, in essence, a fruit has seeds on the inside, while vegetables have seeds on the outside.
I couldn't help myself. With a few minutes remaining in the show, I wrote in an email on the subject, including my educational affiliation, and my first name only, explaining that a vegetable is a food made from the vegetative part, or body, of the plant. A fruit is a result of the flower phenology of the plant; part of the inflorescence.
I waited with sort of bated breath, as it was sort of exciting for me, and they spent the last few minutes discussing something like the cost involved in removing "popcorn" ceilings from a home. The hosts then closed the show.
Disappointed, but somewhat relieved, I realized that I had sort of put myself out there by being a know-it-all. I forgot about this completely.
This weekend, I took a bike ride and came home to an email from a lab friend who asked whether I had called into a radio show about construction with a botanical explanation of the tomato as a fruit! I was shocked, as they had decided to read my email the following week on their show. She said that they read my email and then tried to figure out what this meant for other fruits and vegetables, somewhat confusedly. Of course, I wanted to make sure that my answer was right, and I asked my friend, a PhD in botany, whether I was right. She said it was an excellent answer. Whew! Thank goodness.
Being sort of a private person, the whole thing was sort of thrilling, and funny. My affiliation, and first name, of course, gave me away to my friend. My attempt at anonymity didn't work-- it's a small world! I think I'll leave the public radio talk to others. However, it's good practice for me, as I've done small-group outreach, I've never had to explain things to a large, popular audience. This is something I'm sure I'll be asked to do in the future.

Ode to Herbivores

Oh herbivores, how I love thee.

First, you make magnificent shadows.

Second, your selection pressure on plant populations. You are likely responsible for the creation of caffeine (and some other -ines), which are plant defenses- attempts to prevent your attacks. I thank you daily as I drink my coffee.

Shame on you, though; you don't always disperse to new regions with your food source. Hence, your chosen plants "escape" you (herbivore enemies) when arriving on new shores. On arrival, the local plants are being munched, while your food plants multiply, unchecked. This is one reason for the invasion of exotic plants, although it is subject to some debate.

On the up-side, you may provide the way to control invasive plants- by importing you from your homeland to the new location to munch away. That's why the old lady swallowed the fly. We only hope we don't have to then use a spider, a bird, a cat, a dog... you get the picture. Or other unintended effects on the foodweb. See this article: A Weed, A Fly...

So far, you have spared my little container garden outside. My dog is the only one browsing my potted bamboo.

Lastly, the unintended consequences of your lack of action, exploding weed populations, is my raîson d'etre, and the raîson for my graduate school funding, and I thank you for that.

Count me

It's an odd sensation, knowing you are being counted constantly. As I purchased my organic diced tomatoes and Kashi granola bars last night, I was aware, as usual, that using my Ralph's card to get a discount also meant that my purchases were being tallied in a database somewhere.

I don't mean this to be a paranoid observation. I find solace that my choices are being noted somewhere, while in this busy phase of my life in which I don't have time to write to my senators, actually edit blather like this for a newspaper editorial, or sometimes even to vote in local elections.

I buy organics sometimes just to make a tiny tick in the column of the "good guys." I click on news stories on CNN that have to do with the environment, health, and nature. Even if I don't read them. I note with dismay the "most viewed" articles on various news websites are the "man bites dog" types.

I give "hits" to websites I like. Indeed, there are some that actually are paid by their commercial sponsors by the click (see http://www.therainforestsite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=4 -- no endorsement implied).

While I do find some of this borderline intrusive, of course, (e.g. advertising website cookies), going about the business of living my life at the moment means getting grocery store receipts announcing that I've earned $95 in the "Wine Club," whether I like it or not, and Amazon.com suggestions of books I'd like to buy (the latter being an amusing reminder of a journalism course I took 5 years ago, as that's the last time I bought a book from them).

However tiny our personal track record may be, at no time have our lives been so tracked, and have trends been calculated using such seemingly mundane details of our lives.

So count me, why don't you?

The tiniest avocado!

Had a great time visiting with my parents while they were here. Many neat places seen, some new to me. Many fun plants, and fruit found. This berry was found on one of our last outings. I'm growing the seed now according to the toothpick method.

We''ll see how that goes. I've actually failed at this before, but I'm hoping it works this time. It would be really fun to have a tiny avocado tree-- although I'm not holding out hope for fruit. That would take some time. Ironically the parent tree had the tiniest fruit and the largest leaves. Resource allocation oddity?