Seeds are fantastic little pods of life. Aside from the tiny plant embryo which becomes the sprout and roots, most life pods carry a bit of food energy to help them get started. That way, the plant babies have a jump on things before they get their leaves up into the sun and sky. The carbohydrates that fuel the little sprouts are also fuel for us. Noodles and rice, oat cereal and corn bread, yum! Yolks in eggs do the same for the baby chicks. And a plate of Mexican food after some watery shacks and nasal drip, the best!
Seeds go into a sort of coma state if it is not too wet, not too warm, or if they are surrounded by some kind of sterile and inert material. So an icy glacier, a peat bog, or a no oxygen mud hole can be a seed’s home for a long time. We got some real weedy bean type plant relatives around these parts called Brooms. Some are French, others are Scottish. They are said to hang out in the dirt for over eighty years or more, waiting for the right moment to bust open and go for it. Maybe longer, who knows? I mean, what’s another year if you’ve been sitting around for fifty already? Or a hundred? Oh, one more thing – the brooms have a real hard seed coat which protects their innards.
Roots never cease to amaze me, especially when I am trying to dig up an old and mostly rotten tree and the roots are still holding on tight and strong. There are many plants in the tropics with roots high above the ground. The screw pine is one familiar to Hawaiians and fiber weavers in south east Asia also.
Our economies, geographies, and stories are bound up in the layers of bark and tubes of woody shrubs and trees. The Amazonian rubber trees bridge World War II and the plantations in tropical Asia. Sugar maples flavor the pancakes and the northern woods. Chiclet chews and blows, while Myrrh infuses the air with the rituals of birth and resurrection. Take the time to learn the trees in your neighborhood!
Mission Azul 