The California Botanical Society Graduate Student Symposium yesterday was great. It is very touching somehow that our species can generate such a profound focus on understanding plants. The attachment to animals is more immediately understandable, as they seem somehow more like us and we can maybe be more fascinated or entertained by animals. But our attachment to plants is mysterious and even more touching somehow. Exactly how we identify with and resonate with plants says something about parts of ourselves that grow beautifully in silence, that endure or thrive where rooted, that create beauty in the world without trying too hard and as a natural extension of who we are.
The species that I am studying in Baja California borders on fitting the definition of an extremophile- growing in pure exposed serpentine rock, with high temperatures to 120 degrees and lows to near 40, in saline environments where hurricanes blow through regularly, with low precipitation and extremely high UV radiation.
A series of photographs of Cochemiea halei, my study species, on Isla Magdalena and Isla Santa margarita in BahÃa Magdalena, Baja California Sur
I can see more clearly in my current context why I am so magnetically attracted to this taxon and how it manages not only to survive but thrive in its bizarre and forbidding environment. In particular, plants that grow in pure serpentine rock are pretty amazing.
On another note: Why hotel and motel managers insist on installing families with small children who insist on behaving like small children-- screaming, crying, talking at 5 am, banging things around-- always in the room adjacent to mine is beyond me. If they can't find some crazy little kids to put near me, they can almost always rustle up people who snore all night like warthogs or who have sex so loudly it's a bad parody. Or who cannot hear the television unless it is turned up to the level just below sound cannon.
Fortunately the gods have provided me with very effective ear plugs.
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