The scientific names of plants are given in Latin, a language spoken by no one. This could be one explanation for the common phenomenon of plant blindness in humans.
What we can learn from the ones who don’t move.
The sal tree makes many appearances in the great Indian epics and is also represented by the nymph of the sal tree or Shalabhanjika. She is a woman so fertile, plants flower as she walks past them. And she enjoys a cigarette every now and then.
One of the nice things about settling down is the feeling that we’ve reduced our universe of possibilities, and so it’s easier to make plans. Some people say that the ability to anticipate is what makes homo sapiens unique. But a tree makes plans too, a plan of how it is going to grow over the course of its life.
When Plan A doesn’t work out, ya go to Plan B. But trees can do you one better, alright?
Genetically speaking, no, a dipterocarp is not an individual tree—although it appears to be one. Who the tree is at the beginning of its life is different from who it is at the end. A tree is not a tree but many trees.
To die is the price we pay to be ourselves.
Can you really have a community when you don’t have roots? Is virtual interaction an equivalent substitute to real life interaction?
Why do we have a hard time getting our heads around the fact that carnivorous plants like Sarracenia purpurea are temperate?
To take this photograph of a Phalaenopsis venosa in flower in Sulawesi, I had to climb up on the shoulders of a hardy guide. A minute later, as I got back down on to what I thought was solid ground, I fell through a pile of debris on the forest floor into a deep hole. Luckily, I grabbed onto a nearby root, so I was not lost forever, although I did lose my lens cap.