July 20, 2024
When we honor the wisdom of Ériu, walking the land,
living her rhythms, and knowing her patterns…
When COVID landed and people over seventy-five were not allowed to leave their homes, Ireland’s postal workers convinced their union to change the regulations so they could deliver both food and mail. When a man with a longbow was hiding from the police in the woods near our cottage, neighbors checked in with and on each other continuously until the man was caught. Just two small examples of how community takes care of itself. We come together in difficult and dangerous times.
It’s true for humans. It’s true for animals. It’s also true for plants. However, while we and animals can generally move away from danger, plants cannot. And it’s the dangers of being immobile that have driven plants to engineer some of the most impressive adaptations in nature. Within the fight or flight scenario, plants have only one option.
Over the years, I’ve watched the Holly trees in MossTerra’s forest produce spikes on their lower leaves, and only their lower leaves, to deter predators and I was aware that many plants have similar defensive and self preservation mechanisms. I didn’t know that plants are also concerned with community preservation.
One. When weevils start feeding on the stem of a Scots pine seedling, the plant will release volatiles that cause its neighboring Scots seedlings to jump-start their immune systems.
Two. When surrounded by unrelated plants, Sea Rocket plants grow roots prolifically, aggressively expanding into the sandy soil in an attempt to monopolize nearby nutrients. But when surrounded by their kin, they confine their roots, leaving space for their siblings to access those nutrients.
Three. When Impatiens grow among strangers, they produce extravagant foliage to capture as much sunlight as possible. When planted among kin, they arrange the size and placement of their leaves to avoid shading their siblings.
Four. In the spring of 1977 the experimental forest at the University of Washington was in its third consecutive spring of a sustained and gruesome tent caterpillar attack. Red alders and Sitka willows, usually able to withstand the nuisance of modest populations of these web-weaving leaf-eaters, were succumbing by the hundreds. The trees were almost completely defoliated. By the spring of 1978 the balance of power seemed to shift. The tent caterpillars were dying now. Their populations crashed and eggs that did show up weren’t hatching. By the following spring, the caterpillars had vanished entirely. The trees stopped dying. Their leaves were full and productive. What scientists discovered was improbable, remarkable, and challenging to contemporary thinking in plant biology: the trees were communicating with each other. Through this communication, trees the caterpillars hadn’t yet reached were warned and they were ready; they’d turned their leaves into weapons. The caterpillars that ate them got sick and died.
Tending the tribe. It becomes clear that plants have agency in their lives and the lives of their communities. It’s humbling to consider this as I walk through the forest.
Beannacht,
Judith
So, we need to practice discernment and use our knowing to be aware of threats to our community.
Do you remember Stevie Wonder’s movie, “The Secret Life of Plants”? They discovered that when they took individual plants from a group, put them in another room, and harmed them, that the plants left behind changed their conductivity of micro electric impulses. In short, they knew the others were experiencing stress.
I do! In fact I reference the book in an earlier post. Brilliant work. The issue was that many of the findings were not easily replicated and so the scientific community thoroughly denounced the book, movie, and work. Which had the effect of drying up research for decades. But yes. They do know when others are experiencing stress. Which is why I spend quite a bit of time with the trees in our forest when ones just across the road were being logged. They were absolutely in distress.
The story of the Washington trees’ communicating and acting communally for survival is, well, so relieving. That trees can do this–that plants can do this–with each other is as encouraging as it is astounding. (Washington is my father’s home state, by the way, the U. of W. his school.)