Dave Ferguson and Melissa Tapia-Garcia are both retiring this month, about a year after they initially said they would. That's something like 58 years of BioPark knowledge walking out the door all at once.
At the retirement brunch, most of the Garden staff and no small number of Hort people from the Zoo attended. Even Jon Stewart popped in to welcome Dave to the retired BioPark Club. Judith Phillips and I chatted with Jon and Dave for a good long while. Melissa approved of my Spotted Dog bread.
We'll be "feeding the mosquitos" again tonight. It's still so close to the equinox that things aren't really very dark by the time the tour ends around 8:30 p.m.
It's my the second week of my rotation and much cooler than last week. We'll see if it rains.
Meanwhile, there's an old computer that won't boot in the irrigation closet off of the Botanic Garden's Showroom. It also had the controlling software for the Engrav-o-style system. We'll see if we can breath life into it or at least extract the hard drive and install it as a secondary drive on another system.
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Little rain, only a bit of drizzle while grilling souvlaki.
A cool day in the garden. Got to see a fledgling owl at a distance. Sorry, no photos. But the artichokes and Morkillia were in fine form.
Hard to believe we made it past the equinox and the days are growing shorter. The heat of early June is abating somewhat and it is forecast to be almost 20° cooler with rain today. We'll see how this plays out.
Monday 2:30 a.m. update: Just a couple sprinkles, no rain. Cool temps, though. A little breezy in the late afternoon.
Meanwhile, Seattle friends are sweltering. Fortunately, they had long ago planned on driving down to Oregon and spending the week on the beach in Manzanita.
This evening we've been invited over for a sort of happy hour with Stella's owners, Steve and Michelle, two doors to the west.
More to come...
Garden tour, BioPark Board on-boarding thingie at the Zoo, dinner with Six Feet Up. Whew!
Managed to get my Innocentive solution on biodiversity uploaded before we hit the road for lunch and browsing for birthday gifts at Durand's. Always amazed that people in the Heights have no clue about this fabulous little gem... and my pharmacy.
Cranked out some prizelles this afternoon while Shellie was giving Caro a massage. Very yummy with Chardonnay.
Chemo day for Henry Cat, but he takes the oral, chicken-flavored liquid well. We'll have to wait and see how it works. So far, so good.
D&D tonight. I think the DM gave us a break by having some opponents return to their guard station, thinking the fight was over. Other guards fled in panic and then were attacked by the roper. A merciful DM.
Tomorrow I've got a full schedule:
As I type this on Sunday, I glanced ahead at my calendar for next week, hoping it will suggest a topic for the Tuesday post. To my surprise and joy, Tuesday is wide open.
Indeed, the week is relatively free. Nature's Notebook and a quick trip to the Zoo on Monday. Pressing some plants as I go by Poppy Hill. Baldo will be here on Wednesday and perhaps will lash some bamboo bits to trim out the panels in the side yard behind the bonsai. Thursday has a wee bit of Plone work for Sandia and then D&D via Roll20. Finally, on Friday things pick up with a garden tour, some sort of on-boarding activity for the BioPark Board, and then dinner with the Six Feet Up owners, who are passing through town. The week ends on Saturday with a little social event two doors up at the Matsumoto residence.
A fellow bonsai club member noticed some bonsai-like plants inside the raptor's cages at the Zoo. Apparently, they're in deep pots, almost like training pots. I guess on Monday after Nature's Notebook, I'll go over and see what's going on there.
Meanwhile, over in the Botanic Garden, our efforts to create a permanent bonsai display in the Sasebo Japanese Garden are moving slowly. We await feedback from Tanaka-san.
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Back to Nature's Notebook, the group is concerned about construction in the Heritage Farm and the possible rerouting of the Duranes ditch through the CWG. In an effort to raise awareness of the value of our citizen-science work in the CWG, I've been corresponding with Erin Posthumous in Tucson. She runs our regional National Phenology Network program.
We're hoping to write a piece for the BioScape quarterly magazine and a whitepaper for BioPark management. We'll see what comes out of the process.
"A haunter of woods; one who loves forests for their beauty and solitude."
What a fun word to discover via Facebook today. When I search my digital photo collection for the term "forest," this lovely fall image comes up. Taken Oct. 28, 2018 in the Sasebo Japanese Garden, it captures the autumn light filtering through maple leaves in the late autumn. The lantern's exquisite shape and color perfectly complement the trees.
Even though this was brought up with the search term "forest," the Japanese Garden's few acres can hardly be called a forest. The same can be said of the Cottonwood Gallery... it seems much larger than it actually is. Even so, both of those areas in the Botanic Garden truly capture the essence of a forest, each in its own way.
The paths through these two areas are key elements for access. They remind me of the term "Yūgen," which I was introduced to in my readings of Alan Watts. His definition: "To wander on in a huge forest without thought of return. To stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands. To contemplate the flight of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds."
And that "wandering on in a huge forest" reminds me so much of a hike along the Oregon coast. This photograph perfectly captures the feeling of a rough trail winding amongst massive trees with their age-old nebari.
The Zooming never ends... or will it? Meanwhile, here is John's invite to the workshop...
For a change, you Akadama Yokohama Mamas, you were right. Cataract surgery proved to be a nothingburger, aside from the preposterous 7:00am appt. time. Therefore, we will indeed have our workshop on 6/19/21 at 10:00am, since I can actually see better now than Monday--- fine , bright colors, marred only by my terminal astigmatism which causes Bruce to look like a mutant rutabaga on Zoom.
Some people are calling for efforts to “decolonize” botany, which can be broadly understood to mean an attempt to decenter whiteness in botanical spaces; to honor the complex histories of botanical practices; and to make some form of reparations to the communities from whom the practices were taken.
That position ignores the great value the Linnaean system provides with standardized nomenclature. True, his 18th Century Eurocentric background froze the system in a Latin-esque posture. A new genus (back in 1975) named to honor the indigenous Apaches of the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona had to be Latinized to Apacheria. Of course, the use of pseudo-Latin immediately tells you that it's a scientific name, not a common one. It's a monotypic genus in the odd little family Crossosomataceae. In so far has it never had a common name, someone decided to call it cliff brittlebush.
The full citation is A. chiricahuensis C.T. Mason. That would be Charles Mason, under whom I was awarded my PhD after Arthur Gibson bailed out of the U of A. Dr. Mason was the curator of the herbarium back in the day and I was a teaching assistant for his plant taxonomy courses.
Getting back to nomenclature, I find it instructive that plant common names are only capitalized if they involve proper nouns. Something like Fendler's bladderpod is capitalized because of the proper noun, Fendler. For a reasonably well-written summary of common names and their issues, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_name.
With the new house next door essentially finished on our side of their lot since April, we've done a fair bit of landscaping in the back. This week we're turning our attention to the side yard where the large expanse of 12-foot tall stucco is an unbroken backdrop to my three larger bonsai.
The big old Ginkgo, the big old juniper, and (the latest addition) the thunderhead pine grace the area just outside our front door. In order to break up the monotony of the wall behind them, we've found some simple and inexpensive trellises at Lowe's. Painted with Krylon's Cabernet red spray paint, we've already transformed them into something a bit oriental.
The plan is to back them with bamboo (actually reeds), add some decorative knots with black cord, affix them to stout stakes, and set them behind each of the three bonsai.
Back in business after nearly two years off, we've got evening tours going again at the BioPark. First up is a Botanic Garden tour last night.
I had a nice group of 10 folks including a couple pre-teens. Temps were crazy hot but a spent thunderstorm rolled across the area just at 6:00 with its gust front and clouds helping a little. When the winds calmed down, the mosquitos came out to feast. My 'Off' repellent worked perfectly, but the others suffered until one lady went back to her car and returned with bug spray.
Early this morning, before the mercury climbed into the 90's, I was up on the roof checking the air conditioner. Yesterday while it was near 103°, our thermostat decided to start flashing "Cool on." Apparently something in the roof unit was causing it to send a message downstairs.
As per the Google, we turned off the unit, waited a bit, and then reset it. It has worked fine ever since.
However, perhaps cottonwood cotton had blocked the intake screens. Hence my trip upstairs.
The view was hazy, smoke from the fires in Arizona and the Johnson fire in the Gila. The view of the neighbor's new house showed how large their place is.
Our hypothesis is that leaving the garage door open for Henry (he really likes the warmth in the late afternoon) makes the refrigeration unit overwork.
At any rate, today we kept the door shut or at least barely ajar if Henry was out in the garage. With some hope, that has taken care of the problem.
Back to rooftop ecology, you can see how sterile a roof can be. Somewhere Tardigrades rest in their bullet-proof estivation/dehydration. No mosses grow on this shingle. Most of the trees in the project beyond the east wall of our little neighborhood are sycamores, Plantanus arizonica. There are probably some ash trees as well, of uncertain variety. Not shown, off camer to the right behind our entry tower, is our Chinese pistache, which is providing much appreciated shade these days.
Today (Toozday) will be another scorcher. I have two items on my calendar: the dentist for finalizing my new crown and an evening tour at the Botanic Garden. The latter is the first in almost 2 years. It may also be the hottest ever. I've got my new insulated water bottle from the new company, Encantado Tech, just in time to be loaded with ice water for this evening's stroll.
So close to the equinox, the sun won't set until 8:23, which is about when the tour ends. Temperatures will be in the low 90's dipping only into the upper 80's by closing time. We may not see any bats and, hopefully, the mosquitos will be kept at bay.
Photos and details tomorrow.
The New York Times published an opinion piece today (June 11 as I type this) -- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/11/opinion/zoos-animal-cruelty.html -- that came down pretty hard on zoos in general and the AZA. Coincidently, at the ABQ BioPark's Zoo, they are undergoing their 5-yr recertification audit this week. That will also include the Aquarium, Bugarium, and the Heritage Farm. Some Botanic Garden infrastructure will be looked at just as a matter of course.
In defense of the BioPark, they are exceptional in that their success with breeding and release of many difficult species speaks of the positive environment that the Zoo creates for the creatures in their care. Their enrichment programs and use of captive-bred animals instead of wild-caught is a testament to the quality of the facility.
The three IUCN staff members (employed by the BioPark Society) is another sign that we take exceptional interest in conservation research, sustainability, education, collaborative partnerships, and messaging.
"Discover Nature. Inspire Action." is the mission statement and as docents we make every effort to promulgate that message.
The BBC Culture section of their online news has a lovely piece on the healing and relaxing effects of sounds from nature... https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210609-the-sounds-that-make-us-calmer. I'm inspired to grab the H4n Handy Recorder and head out tomorrow (Friday) to record the sounds of the Botanic Garden. Stay tuned!
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest Suzanne Simard Knopf (2021)
Growing up in the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, I often grieved that their beauty — sky-high Douglas firs, rustling alders, sword ferns draped across the slopes — was born of a brutal battle for light, water and nutrients. So I thought.
In 1997, ecologist Suzanne Simard made the cover of Nature with the discovery of a subterranean lace of tree roots and fungal filaments, or hyphae, in British Columbia (S. Simard et al. Nature 388, 579–582; 1997). It was “a network as brilliant as a Persian rug”, she recalls in her memoir Finding the Mother Tree — a network through which multiple tree species were exchanging carbon. The trees were cooperating.
The discovery of this fungal network, or ‘wood wide web’, as it came to be known, upended a dominant scientific narrative — that competition is the primary force shaping forests. Forest ecology is instead a much more nuanced dance, in which species sometimes fight and sometimes get along. This calls into question the way that most foresters manage trees. Clear-cutting, weeding and planting single species in well-spaced rows makes sense only if trees do best when they have all the resources they need to themselves.
Throughout her career, Simard has shown that, in fact, it takes a whole ‘village’ to raise a tree. Alders fix atmospheric nitrogen, which can then be used by pines and other tree species. Older, deeper-rooted trees bring up water from lower in the soil to shallow-rooted plants. Carbon, water, nutrients and information about threats and conditions are shared across the fungal-root network. When Douglas firs are infested with western spruce budworm (Choristoneura occidentalis), they alert pines to which they are connected through the wood wide web, and these respond by producing defence enzymes. In the middle of all this activity are the mother trees. The oldest, largest and most experienced, they subsidize the growth and flourishing of seedlings all around.
Simard creates her own complex network in this memoir, by weaving the story of these discoveries with vignettes from her past. The themes of her research — cooperation, the legacies that one generation leaves for the next, the ways in which organisms react to and recover from stress and disease — are also themes in her own life. The network of friends, family and colleagues who support Simard, as a scientist and as a woman, is visible throughout: as central to the story as a forest’s web of fungal filaments and delicate rootlets.
Simard’s life story is, of course, unique, yet it has a striking universality. After working for a logging company, she moved into government service and then into academia, trying in each job to untangle the subterranean mysteries of the forest. She fought to have her ideas taken seriously in a male-dominated field. (There are shades of Lab Girl, by US geobiologist Hope Jahren, in her clear-eyed depictions of what she has to deal with behind the scenes — from being passed over for jobs for which she was the best candidate, to being called “Miss Birch” behind her back, a sound-alike for a much harsher epithet.) Simard found love, lost it, and found it again. She struggled, like so many scientists, to balance her research and her roles as a wife and mother. She faced mortality when diagnosed with cancer.
The thread-like roots of fungi are an essential element of a forest’s ‘wood wide web’, through which trees exchange carbon, water, nutrients and information.Credit: Claire Welsh
Moving through life’s highs and lows with her is rewarding because of these resonances, and because she comes across as the kind of person who usually doesn’t write memoirs — shy and occasionally fearful, always earnest. It feels like a privilege to be let into her life.
The muddy, stressful and occasionally exhilarating experience of fieldwork shines through. “Jittery with adrenaline”, while labelling seedlings in one field experiment, she describes feeling “as if I were about to parachute out of a plane, maybe land on Easter Island”. Simard got her first morsel of proof for her theory in 1993, while kneeling on the forest floor holding a Geiger counter to detect the radioactive carbon-14 that she used to track carbon flows through plants and fungi. “I was enraptured, focused, immersed, and the breeze sifting through the crowns of my little birches and firs and cedars seemed to lift me clear up,” she writes.
After publishing her Nature paper, Simard showed that trees direct more resources to their offspring than they do to unrelated seedlings. The finding suggests that trees maintain a level of control through the network that one might call intelligence. As she argues, plants seem to have agency. They perceive, relate and communicate, make decisions, learn and remember, she writes: “qualities we normally ascribe to sentience, wisdom”. For Simard, that implies that they are due a certain respect.
She does not spell out the ethical implications, but the ideas raise fascinating moral questions. What responsibilities do we owe plants? Is logging or farming crops, to harvest and eat, cruel? What kinds of legal right might a tree have if we base our theories of rights on whether individuals, such as humans and chimpanzees, have intelligence or sentience?
It is tempting to ascribe the dominance of the ‘brutal competition’ narrative to the fact that ecology was dominated by men, and to find poetic power in the idea that a woman saw cooperation when her male colleagues couldn’t. But Simard tells a more complex tale. She struggled to see the truth in the soil and in her heart — and got there only because she was determined and intuitive.
Simard writes that big old trees are “mothering their children” by sending them, through the forest network, sugars, water, nutrients and information about threats. Reading this on page 5, I was sceptical. By the end I was convinced. The beauty of the forests of my youth turns out to be shaped, in a sense, by love.
Last Monday Caro and I scurried out for a 9:30-10:00 ticketed window at the BG. We snagged a couple sausage/egg/cheese thingies at Burger King and had a bit of a picnic brunch. Then we were off to tour the rest of the garden, which was in high form.
