The Mighty Have Fallen

What mighty have fallen? Well, if we're talking about the building of America on the backs of the American forest, just about all of them. But if the subject's sudden catastrophe, I think of two species: the American Elm and the American Chestnut.

I want to talk about the chestnut, because it was very much on my mind as I visited the forests of Vermont and New Hampshire, places once stuffed with these towering and beneficent trees.

(Before I go any further, if you're already hooked on the topic, you should know about the just-released book, Mighty Giants: An American Chestnut Anthology, a project celebrating the 25th anniversary of American Chestnut Foundation.)

Fallen chestnut burrs, not a sight you'll see much of in the eastern woods anymore, but it's been known to happen. Ever seen 'em?

photo credit: Courtesy of Great Smoky Mountains National Park Library

 

If you're new to this story, let's cut to the chase: within 50 years of the arrival of an Asian fungus we now call chestnut blight in the late 1800's, an estimated FOUR BILLION TREES were LOST. We're talking GONE.

You could just see the trees dying. You could see them changing from time to time. One would die; the leaves would turn brown and fall off in the middle of the summer ... people couldn't believe it. They thought they'd come back.

One of the eye-witnesses account from Mighty Giants. This is from a NYTimes account, summer 1911:

Chestnut Trees Face Destruction -- Trees Worth Millions Dying in This State from a Canker for Which There Is No Remedy. Eats Beneath The Bark -- Sprays and Other Attempts to Check Spread of the Paraside Unsuccessful -- Trees in Botanical Park Doomed.

Nothing new under the sun. Not with what worries us today. But optimism abounds about the future of the chestnut and our ability to undo damage (could it be?) from very un-Pollyanna-like people like Bill McKibben, who wrote the short introduction to this softback book.

... the story of the chestnut echoes like a fable -- a fable about carelessness, and about the hard work and hard love needed to make up for that carelessness. A fable we need to start telling more and more, for the hope it gives and the lesson it provides.

OK, so it's a little Pollyanna-ish but the point's this: people have been and continue to be devoted to the return of the chestnut. And who's to argue with their vision, their certainty, that the job can be done.

American Chestnut memories, anyone? Bring 'em on...

"At last when the tree can serve us no longer in any other way it forms the basic wood onto which oak and other woods are veneered to make our coffins." P.L.Buttrick, 1915. Sorry, couldn't resist the quote. Needless to say, what a mighty giant she is, Castanea dentata.

photo credit: Courtesy of Great Smoky Mountains National Park Library

 

Frank Meyer, "intrepid and tireless plant explorer" for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tracked the source of the chestnut blight back to China in 1913. (His pix alone is reason enough to see this book.)

2:00 PM ET | 10-31-2007 | permalink | comments (14) | e-mail post

Talking Forest

So let's talk about the forest.

Forgive my earnesty, but I'm increasingly aware that outside of my loved ones, there's nothing more important to me than the forest. Admittedly, not a particularly striking revelation coming from someone who loves plants. But I wasn't like this till I moved to Oregon, and now wherever I travel, I seek out the region's deepest woods.

The forest works for me because I need the relative silence of the woods to shut me up, shut me down, help me connect to what I think matters (that is, the forest itself). That's why I prefer hiking alone unless I'm with an equally willing silent partner (the dogs do nicely). I need the girth of trunks and the filtered atmosphere to see exactly what's in front of me -- which then makes it possible to tune everything else out.

What wild places keeps you sustained, sane, balanced? And what are you doing to help protect them?

This is a genuine question; no imperious tone here. I'm just curious what organizations you support, how you support them (money counts, most assuredly), plus what recommendations you have for others who want to give back to the plants, trees, forests -- but don't know where to start.

Boy I'm boring when I'm earnest...

7:32 PM ET | 10-29-2007 | permalink | comments (14) | e-mail post

Shout-Out for the Sugar Maple

Out of my own harrowing frustration trying to boil down a complex and nuanced story, today's Morning Edition feature now spills onto the page.

The saga features that incomparable big-headed beauty Acer saccharum -- also known as the fiery Ms. Sugar Maple -- and her possibly fatal choice of a landlord -- often high-on-octane and always unpredictable -- the notorious Climate Change.

A quick count of the supporting cast, all stars in their own right, include Ecology, Entymology, Sustainable Foresty, and those three evil stoogies, Forest Fragmentation, Greedy Development and All-Terrain Terror. Plus the one player absolutely everybody's sweet on, Maple Syrup.

Without her, no one would bother seeing the show.

Can you imagine the trouble I had handling this cast, trying to keep one from overshadowing all the others?

Some of the extras still waiting for a call back after casting for NPR's maple story saga. Contact their Vermont agents at Comstock House if you have work.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Frankly, the whole story's a bit out of control. Imagine trying to predict the ending! Will Man save Ms. Maple? Will Climate Change conquer them both? And even if you don't like the way it's headed -- with Ms. Maple's friends the cold-loving Conifers getting the heave-ho first -- tell me this:

Do you think there's still time to change the ending?

4:56 PM ET | 10-28-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

As the Santa Ana Winds Blow

Here's a few insights about the current fire that speak to our concerns and questions about our relationship with the natural world.

NPR's John Nielsen on the ways of these winds:

When the winds are moderate, they blow air pollution out to sea and make life in Southern California more pleasant. But last week, after a gigantic mass of air formed over the high plateaus, the Santa Ana winds turned into monsters.

California Nurseryman Trey Pitsenberger on certain futility:

We can prepare and plant fire resistant plantings, build our homes of more fire resistant materials, and change our neighborhoods design to better resist fire but when the Santa Annas start blowing, look out!

The L.A. Times on our continued uneasy relationship with beauty:

Brush thrives on occasional disaster. Old undergrowth chokes out new life; fires clear the ground and fertilize and freshen the soil. We know that even as we fight the flames and grieve over their aftermath. Southern Californians have chosen to live where wildness is still a visible, occasionally destructive and often awe-inspiring force.

Please enlighten us with your thoughts about why we continue to be surprised by such catastrophe, and what us run-of-the-mill passionate environmentalists can do.

11:00 AM ET | 10-24-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

Greetings from Stump Town

I was heading for the chiropractor's yesterday and had to merge onto I-5 heading south out of Portland. Usually, that merge is no problem, but in the lane to my right was a big old truck with a body that went on for miles.

I had to fade back to slip in behind it and so got a long, sad look at its cargo: naked creatures formerly known as trees. Not all that unusual a sight on this highway, but at least one in the bundle was a big tree. I mean a BIG tree.

My heart sank. Having just returned from the Northeast, where sustainable forestry is how families have stayed in business for generations, I was reminded of the clear cuts you still see in the NW.

Of course the big trees in New England vanished hundreds of years ago; it's a rare giant that goes to market. Which makes it all the more painful to see one rolling down a 21st century highway.

I was ashamed.

4:05 PM ET | 10-18-2007 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post

Let It Fall!

What a relief that the flower season's almost over. Honest.

You macro pix meshuganas make the world so blissfully bite-sized and so breathtakingly unreal! While the truth -- for this gardener -- is the bigger, messier picture. Which is one of the reasons I can't get enough of the kaleidoscopic chaos that is foliage in the fall.

For my money -- and the stuff does cost -- there's nothing black mondo grass can't do. This week it's drowning in killer crape myrtle foliage; a few months from now it'll be setting off brilliant little species tulips if the squirrels and the beagle don't get them first.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

Kudos to TP Flickr Pixer Christine4nier who grabbed this conversation between a red maple and a birch before they took the plunge into history near Woodstock, VT.

photo credit:Christine4nier

 

So how 'bout grabbing your cameras and sharing your perspective as this most melancholy of times take its leaves? Delight us with autumnal light, colorful landscapes, fiery and fallen moments in your garden. Best pix gets posted on the NPR homepage billboard (hint: take horizontals).

And if this is your first visit to Talking Plants, it's easy to join our jolly band of photographers (244 members and going strong!). We all belong to the no strings attached Talking Plants Flickr Pix photo swap, All Comers Welcome and Here's How, where you're likely to run into folks much like yourself with a strong sense of wonder (and might I add, gratitude) for all Man has yet to plunder.

2:09 PM ET | 10-17-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

A Boutonniere for Frankenstein

One of our more prolific friends from the Talking Plant Flickr party recently posted a photo that defied the dictum, Seeing Is Believing. It was, she said, an aster, but I couldn't believe my eyes.

Aster or mutant mum? It took me a while to sort it out.

photo credit: aleth11

 

In a follow-up e-mail, our friend Aleth wrote that her picture may have come out a bit bluer than the real thing, but at the time I didn't realize just how much bluer. So I starting a blogging tirade about genetic tinkering and plant colors that better suited M&M's.

Fortunately, before I posted it, I heard again from Aleth, whose follow-up pix of her new purchase showed the plant in its truer color. It was indeed an aster, the recently annointed Henry III, and not nearly as Frankenstein-like as I'd feared. I am so relieved she sent the follow-up pix before I made a total ass of myself and wrongly maligned Henry's parents, Yoder Brothers for unleashing a monster.

Aster or mum? The answer's Aster 'Henry III', but you'd be hard- pressed to tell from the flower, form or foliage.

photo credit: courtesy of Yoder Brothers

 

Compare and contrast. This native aster and its abundant friends are now blooming along the Connecticut River in New England. Can't you just hear the water, feel the wind?

photo credit: Christine4nier

Still, I'm stumped. What happened to the aster and it's essential asteraceousness? Why is it posing as a marigold, or mum?

Right now, in fields and streams across the country (even in the Santa Fe neighborhood I write from, where asters are blooming amidst yellow chamisa, a.k.a. Chrysothamnus nauseosus!), asters are strutting their lean, lanky, and button-eyed blossoms. They are looking gooood.

SO...I'm throwing it out to you guys. How much genetic tinkering can you take?

11:13 AM ET | 10-12-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

When It's Time to Talk to Plants

You know you've lost it after traveling all day and finally landing at a spectacular B&B, and instead of kicking back and breathing in the view, you spend three hours on the phone with Tech Support trying to get your laptop online.

Yes, I really lost it and alas, not for the first time. It tends to happen when I'm on assignment, running around collecting tape. (Make that "tape"; my hands haven't touched the real stuff in a long, long time).

But I am not a complete idiot. I do have a better self. And she's the one who yanks my head out of my hard drive and says, NATURE, GIRL. GET THEE TO NATURE.

So after I said goodbye to my last interview yesterday, an extraordinary forest historian named Charlie Cogbill who'd waltzed me through 18th century tree archives in Calais, VT, I got dropped off several miles short of the B&B and walked back home in the wonder that is northern Vermont.

Did you know that sugar maples do not turn red? I didn't realize that till I came to Vermont to report on climate change and the future of this beloved tree (headline: it's quite bright, thank you). The fiery red to the left is -- get this! -- a red maple, (Acer rubrum), and the orange/gold/peach concoction to the right is the sugar maple (Acer saccharum).

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

I leave you today with a final word for the hard-working during this unfolding fall:

Get Over Yourself and Get Outside!

11:47 AM ET | 10-10-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Oprah's Gorgeous Gardener

So handsome, he has to go incognito in dark glasses and bird's nest hairpiece.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

I blame this tawdry tidbit on my friends at Garden Rant, who had the gloriously bad taste to blog about Oprah's gorgeous gardener and his heavy pectoral past.

The Sydney Morning Herald liked the story, too...

Since I can't legally post Jamie Durie's pix, I'll go one better and offer you a rare glimpse of a real horticultural heartbreaker. To save him from the paparazzi, however, I must withhold his (truly) famous name.

2:07 PM ET | 10- 5-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

Rock Star Botanists

As promised, you're about to meet Ken Wood. He's one of the so-called "rock star botanists" on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i, associated with the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

Why rock star? Most likely because his exploits have become the stuff of legend, his relentless, daring feet (insert wink) in the wild decade after decade, in search of endangered Hawaiian and Pacific Islands plants.

If you've got a hankering to find research biologist Ken Wood, you could do worse than scout for him around the Kalalau Valley on the island of Kaua'i, one of his favorite botanic haunts.

photo credit: courtesy National Tropical Botanic Garden

 

Yet for all the risks he takes on his seemingly death-defying plant expeditions, Ken Wood is no pumped-up Indiana Jones. Consider his modest comments from the talk we had while hiking a ridge overlooking his beloved Kalalau Valley.

All through time, there've been very interesting field biologists, many out here in the Hawaiian Islands, and these naturalists, botanists and biologists were incredibly adventurous; the rigors and difficulties they encountered were intense and amazing. So I think we've a similar mindset.

As for describing that mindset, how's this for a swashbuckling answer:

It's often said, "Who am I, Where do I come from, Where am I going to." Well, the "who am I" part is not just my physical form but what I'm a part of. So that curiousity we have, that interest in understanding our relationship with earth and/or the universe, I think that's in us all. And once we start to tap into it and learn a little bit and open the first few pages of this incredible story, we're locked in there. And if you can make a living at it, then you're in for a really cool ride.

Don't worry, he isn't hooved. These are Wood's spiked tabis.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

It occurs to me that reading Ken Wood is no substitute for hearing him. So much is in his delivery. As he talks about hand-pollinating plants to get them to set seed -- we're talking very rare plants now, often the last of their species, clinging to rock cliffs 3,000 feet high -- his slow, seductive way of explaining things makes the act itself sound like soft porn. So if you haven't already, give a listen to the audio clip up top.

Ready to rock? Cool. How 'bout starting with an overview of the endangered plant crisis in Hawaii. Two good articles that feature Wood are Hanging by a Thread from Discover Magazine, and Paradise Lost? from Plant Talk.

And for you plant geeks, here's the blow-by-blow list of Hawaii's threatened and endangered plants, as well as an awesome overview of Hawaii's native flora.

A flora, I might add, all the richer because of guys like Ken Wood (I can already hear him protesting that he's just one piece of the conservation puzzle. Agreed). Not only has he kept countless plants from extinction, he is the decidedly bashful papa of a previously undescribed species. Get a look at this exquisite yellow Hibiscadelphus woodii.

Pretty, isn't she? You can thank Ken Wood for getting her on the list of Hawaiian native flora.

photo credit: Ken Wood

 

Stay tuned for more adventures from Kaua'i...

9:03 PM ET | 10- 2-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

Botanizing in Hawaii

It's all-Kauai all week on Talking Plants where the subject is Hawaiian native plants. So get comfy and start streaming Kaua'i Community Radio (it plays Hawaiian music all morning, though some dj's are decidedly better than others) and let me say, Mahalo! for listening.

I'm just back from a week botanizing on Kaua'i with a pretty remarkable cast of characters, whose stories I'll be telling later this year on Morning Edition. No reason for you guys to wait, though, since these are plant people you're gonna want to meet.

First up, the guy below in the orange cap, Ken Wood, who climbs mountains, jumps from helicoptors and dangles thousands of feet in the air to save plants from extinction. His story, tomorrow.

You'll have to hustle to keep pace with him, but you'd be hard-pressed to hike with a better Kauai field guide than Ken Wood, research biologist with the National Tropical Botanical Garden.

photo credit: Ketzel Levine, NPR

 

3:05 PM ET | 10- 1-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post