Forest canopy (1/10/2018)

As I mentioned before, I  am a reader of naturalist books an if you scan my reading list you know that one of the books I am currently reading is David Haskell's book: The Forrest Unseen, a year's watch in nature.

Haskell tells about visits to a permanent forest plot that he makes throughout the year.  He calls it his mandala. He writes small chapters about small subjects based on observations he sees on those days, and then goes into the rabbit hole of biology.  They are mostly good, only once or twice did I scratch my head and that was because it was in my expertise, so I knew more about it; but in general, he is good!

I really liked his chapter he called "November 21 - Twigs."  In it he starts out describing watching a squirrel high up in a tree trying to eating seeds and seeing a freshly broken twig in his mandala.  He goes on talking about how trees grow twigs at random, but shed most of them and only the strongest and most useful survive (survival of the fittest).  The shedding can happen any time, but especially when it is windy or when it is storming.  It made me think when I walk the woods.  My dog Jake (a male obviously) needs to stop at every fallen twig, especially when it has leaves on it and pee on them.  So yes, I am very aware of all those twigs and so is Jake, and almost every day, there is a new twig on the ground somewhere on my trail.  The struggle for existence is going on all the time.

Haskell takes it further to really big twigs, or trees going down in the woods.  He describes how the understory plants actually see with a chemical called phytochrome (this was all fun reading for me because this was all a big part of my Ph.D. work some 28 to 30 years ago).  This is particularly important when a gap opens up after a tree falls.  It is then, that all the seedlings of trees that have been waiting, get the message: "GROW!"  Grow like hell that is, it is again survival of the fittest, who can fill that gap first, wins.  Naturally, the mature trees on the border of the gap also want to fill in, so it is a race.  I described this a little in previous posts when I wrote about the dog hairs (ok, that post is overtly political as well) and when I wrote about some of my walks in the woods recently (here and here).

I am bringing this photograph back from a previous blog, but obviously this oak found the gap left by a tree that had fallen in the past.  Oaks typically do not like to grow in the understory and it seems that it waited for its time to spread it's wings (branches) really quickly.

I sometimes leave to beaten trail and "bush whack" in the woods behind my home.  During this parrticular walk I found this tree.  I never saw this beech before; evidence that walks in the woods are never boring.   It was a big tree that obviously did one of a few things, it either survived logging, it survived a fire, or it found a hole in the canopy.  Beech trees are shade tolerant and can survive in the understory for a long time and when a gap opens they can pounce! 

Like Haskell, I too spend my time in nature observing things, learning from it and just meditating over it.  Unlike Haskell who had his mandala, I wander and do my bathing that way.  In my eye, neither way is better; they are both great ways of improving yourself and gaining or maintaining sanity.