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Weird but Wonderful: The Strangler Was a Tree
Nature is a gift, so vast and varied that none of us can fully know or appreciate it. Some aspects of the natural world — the warmth of the sun, the cooing of a dove, the pitter-patter of rain drops on our roof tops, are quite familiar. Others we may find weird but wonderful, bizarre but beautiful — or downright astonishing and sometimes terrifying. This is the fourth in a series. Please join me each week (normally on Mondays) as I share some observations about aspects of nature that may be less familiar to many.
Let’s play word association. I say “plants,” and you say …
Passive? Unthinking? Alive yet clueless? Peaceful? Salad?
Think again. The world beyond our front doors, the world beneath our feet when we venture outside, is a veritable battleground. We stroll through that botanical war zone, blissfully unaware of the mayhem happening all around us. Plants are more like animals — to be honest, more like us — than we may assume.
They too struggle to survive in a world that is often hostile to them. They are forced to compete with their neighbors for limited resources. They are surrounded by predators, ranging from microbes too small to see to humans, equipped with chain saws and logging trucks. And, of course, like humans, plants live at the whim of natural disasters, such as fire — but…
