Opinion | Cure Yourself of Tree Blindness
Sep. 3rd, 2017 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2evGzg4:Opinion | Cure Yourself of Tree Blindness:
meadowslark:
rjzimmerman:
Excerpt:
Just naming trees might sound a bit like a parlor trick to impress your friends. But it’s also a way to start paying attention. Then you notice more interesting things. Trees put on one of nature’s great sex shows. Each spring they break their winter dormancy with a burst of genitalia, also known as flowers. Some, including the famous cherries, are insect-luring exhibitionists; others, such as the oaks, are more coy, relying on the wind to help consummate the mating act. Take a moment to watch and listen to a flowering redbud tree full of pollen-drunk bumblebees. I promise you won’t be bored.
Some may want more practical reasons for learning trees. If so, I offer that knowing your trees opens up an abundant and entirely free food source. Those in the know can gorge on juicy native mulberries and serviceberries in the spring, and persimmons and pawpaws in late summer. That’s to say nothing of tree nuts, which carpet the forest floor in fall. Pecans, walnuts, hickory nuts, beech nuts; with proper preparation, they’re all edible. For Native Americans living in California before European contact, acorns were a staple more important than corn. Yet today they’re a specialty item, largely limited to the occasional D.I.Y. foraging workshop.
Spot on. The first tree I remember being taught to identify was the American elm. My fourth grade teacher taught us to see not the leaf shape (it was winter) but the bark and the V-shaped branching structure of the tree. Have never looked at plants, particularly trees, the same again.
meadowslark:
rjzimmerman:
Excerpt:
Just naming trees might sound a bit like a parlor trick to impress your friends. But it’s also a way to start paying attention. Then you notice more interesting things. Trees put on one of nature’s great sex shows. Each spring they break their winter dormancy with a burst of genitalia, also known as flowers. Some, including the famous cherries, are insect-luring exhibitionists; others, such as the oaks, are more coy, relying on the wind to help consummate the mating act. Take a moment to watch and listen to a flowering redbud tree full of pollen-drunk bumblebees. I promise you won’t be bored.
Some may want more practical reasons for learning trees. If so, I offer that knowing your trees opens up an abundant and entirely free food source. Those in the know can gorge on juicy native mulberries and serviceberries in the spring, and persimmons and pawpaws in late summer. That’s to say nothing of tree nuts, which carpet the forest floor in fall. Pecans, walnuts, hickory nuts, beech nuts; with proper preparation, they’re all edible. For Native Americans living in California before European contact, acorns were a staple more important than corn. Yet today they’re a specialty item, largely limited to the occasional D.I.Y. foraging workshop.
Spot on. The first tree I remember being taught to identify was the American elm. My fourth grade teacher taught us to see not the leaf shape (it was winter) but the bark and the V-shaped branching structure of the tree. Have never looked at plants, particularly trees, the same again.
