Spring is in the air which is always a great time to start thinking about plants and gardens.
I’ve been reading Wade Davis’ book One River, an adventure story about two ethnobotanists, Richard Evans Schultes and Timothy Plowman, teacher and student, and their explorations in the Amazonian jungles and Andean mountains of South America in the 1940s and 70s, working with indigenous peoples and discovering thousands of “new” species of plants along the way.
Schultes was a Harvard ethnobotanist who is a legend in his field, first studying peyote in Oklahoma in the 40’s before going on to Mexico to rediscover the morning glory seeds and psilocybin mushrooms popular with the ancient Aztecs. But much of his work was in the Amazonian jungles of Colombia where in 1942 he first encountered the jungle concoction yage, more commonly known as Ayahuasca, among the tribes of the Putumayo. Interestingly, he was a colleague of William Burroughs and was the one who told him about the plant which lead to the first appearance of this Amazonian vine in popular literature through Burroughs’ book, The Yage Letters, a series of letters between him and Allen Ginsburg in the 50s.
In a separate book coauthored by Schultes, Plants of the Gods, he presents a nice picture of the plant kingdom which he depicts as a tree with five branches in a evolutionary system based on when these plants first appeared on earth. This evolutionary tree presents an arborescent map of the entire plant kingdom, at least as it’s understood today. Looking at the evolutionary tree I noticed that all these branches are represented in a traditional Japanese garden so I thought this may be a good way to turn your own garden, no matter what size it is (think bonsai too if you don’t have an outside garden), into a microcosm of the plant kingdom.
All you need for your evolutionary garden is moss, a fern or two, some mushrooms, an evergreen and a fruit tree.
Moss
According to biologists and geologists today studying the achives of life on earth, moss was the first plant to appear on land and started to colonize the planet around 470 million years ago.
While algae is recognized as the earliest plant to exist on earth, appearing some 3.8 billion years ago by the magic of photosynthesis that combined light and water into the first appearance of life, it only existed on water. It was moss, scientifically part of the bryophyta order, that first separated from green algae to spread on land and still exists today growing on patches of hills, creeping up stones and covering fallen trees in old woods. I imagine it started out as a green residue from the receding tides that eventually spread more and more inland like a green carpet extending the blue ocean into a sea of rolling emerald hills on land.
As one of the first plants on earth, it’s no wonder why the presence of moss give an ancient feel to any place, depicting scenes from an ancient Irish cemetery with old Celtic crosses and stone steps surrounded by moss.
Despite its age, moss is an overlooked plant perhaps because there is very little “use” for animals and humans. Its not edible or medicinal like most of the other plants but it does provide invaluable support to an ecosystem by retaining rain water and providing homes to some insects and smaller animals.
One culture that does not overlook moss are the Japanese. In a Japanese garden, moss is one of the most vital elements because it serves as the main ground cover for the garden which is carved out by pebbles and stone paths. Replace grass with moss and you have a good idea of how central moss is to the Japanese garden.
In the West, there is some growing interest in incorporating moss into your home, either on a roof or as a replacement for grass. There are some very good reasons to replace your lawn with moss. It retains water and does not require any chemicals or fertilizers and would also eliminate the need for mowing. For a less aggressive approach you can always just grow a patch of moss in a small space, even a glass aquarium, since it grows just about anywhere.
To grow moss you can buy it online and have it shipped to you in a box. I bought moss last year from a company in Pennsylvania and used to it fill in the cracks between a stone pathway. It just requires shade and water and can grow anywhere, even on rocks or outdoor sculptures to give them an old feeling.
If you just need a small amount you can dig up a little patch you might see on a local walk and then bring it home and place it in your garden or terrarium. Just try to retain some of the soil and make sure to give it a little love when it starts out. The texture is very soft and spongy and if you look closely you’ll be looking into a tight woven fabric which is the ancestor of the first life on this planet.
Plant some moss to bring the first form of life into your own life.
Fungi
If moss is an overlooked plant then fungi are often looked upon with suspicion, kind of like the big bad wolf of the “plant” kingdom. In fact, fungi are not considered plants any more as botanists are now starting to put Fungi, most commonly known as mushrooms, into their own kingdom separate from the plant kingdom. One reason is because they have some properties closer to animals than plants and are now believed to share a common genealogical ancestry with animals that broke away from the plant kingdom.
That said, they are still a great part of any garden and grow naturally to assist with decomposition. The study of mushrooms is called mycology and is experiencing a new wave of interest and discovery largely spearheaded by the mycologist Paul Stamets. One of the essential features of fungi, and mushrooms in particular, is the underground network of fibers that spread throughout the soil. This network is called mycelium and is responsible for transferring nutrients throughout the soil aiding in the health of the ecosystem. As Merlin Sheldrake puts in his recent book on Fungi, “Mycelium is ecological connective tissue, the living seam by which much of the world is stitched into relation.” This network is now popularly called the “wood wide web”.
The mushroom that grows on top of decaying wood or on the soil close to a tree trunk is the fruit body of this network. Stamets calls fungi the immune system of the ecosystem and Schultes acknowledged that “almost all antibiotics in wide use are derived from fungi.”1
Growing mushrooms is a little trickier because you need spores and different types of wood to grow specific mushrooms. A nice table on woods that specific mushrooms can grow on is below courtesy of Stamets’ website www.fungi.com
I’ve never tried to grow from spores but I do try and create an environment naturally for them to grow. I use a lot of compost soil and I also leave some larger dead branches in my garden to slowly decay away which is how fungis grow anyway. When I started to use a lot of compost I saw a dramatic increase in mushrooms popping up in little colonies.
If you see mushrooms growing in your garden, say hello and let them be. It’s a healthy sign your soil is full of life.
Ferns
Out of the sea of green moss there appeared the first plants that grew vertically and were the dominant plant during the Carboniferous period around 350 million years ago. These are commonly known as the ferns (pteridophyta) which were the bridge of life for later plants to develop. During the Carboniferous period massive ferns were responsible for purifying the air by fixing carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen. This allowed for the evolution of seed bearing plants.
Ferns are the first plants with stems and roots, known as a vascular system. These plant tissues create a complex structure that allows for the transport of water and minerals throughout the plant. Ferns grew erect, some almost as tall as trees, but always remained herbaceous never developing a woody stem like trees. They also only reproduce via spores like moss and fungi.
While not a common source of food or other human use today, the carbon fuel we extract from the earth is largely the remnant of the vast forests of our ancestor ferns, the great air purifiers who we are now reverse engineering for energy.
For the Chinese, ferns are known as yang plants and they are a feature in many Japanese gardens, lightly appearing next to a stone or under a pruned tree on the side of the walkway.
They are usually grown as shade plants and appear naturally on forest floors after the leaf canopy has reappeared in late spring to cover the sun and create the shade needed to grow. You can buy different types at your local nursery and plant them in a shady spot. They are also a staple of Southern hospitality growing in hanging pots on a front porch or overflowing out of a Greek urn in an indoor study or by an entrance.
What I’ve always loved about ferns is its fractal structure where the tiniest part of the leaf reflects the whole structure of the plant itself, as if light first expressed itself upwards in a recursive ladder through the structure of the fern.
Ferns were the first form of life that reached for the heavens. Plant a fern to add a little archaic air purifier to your surroundings.
Conifers
The first seed bearing plants to appear on the earth were also the first trees which are called conifers (gymnosperms) commonly known as evergreen trees since they retain their green needles or leaves all year round.
Reproduction in the plant kingdom evolved from dust clouds to seeds. For the conifers the magic of reproduction takes place in the cones. The cones start out as little “candles” that carry the pollen which then pollinate the female cones. Some conifer trees are both male and female while others have separate male and female trees. Next time you eat some pine nuts realize you are tasting the first type of seeds that appeared on the planet.
Along with introducing seeds to planet earth, conifers also introduced wood. This hardier structure not only allowed conifers to grow much taller but also enabled these plants to withstand colder climates. Even today forests in colder climates are predominately conifer forests.
Like moss and ferns, conifers never had much use for humans as far as food or medicines although some resins were used for various medicinal and utilitarian purposes. However, some conifers like pine trees may have had some traditional culinary uses. When Lewis and Clark visited the Nez Perce in the Pacific Northwest, they told how it was customary for these people to cook bear meat on rock stones layered with pine branches giving it a “distinctive flavor, unpleasant to most whites.”2
For the Japanese certain evergreens in a garden, like cedars (cryptomeria), are planted to promote health and longevity. The development of wood probably helped extend the life span of life on earth. Today the sequoia’s of California are the longest living life form on earth and existing species are estimated to live for 2000 to 3500 years although its not certain since no specimen has ever died of old age, only from an accident.3
The Algonkian people, who stretched across the Eastern US and Canada lived in wigwams made of the thin wooden poles covered in barks and hides and heated by rock fireplaces. They never fell trees for shelter or fire. It must have been taboo to cut down trees even though they lived in an abundant eastern woodland forest, once populated by the evergreen eastern hemlock, where it was said a squirrel could travel from the Virginia piedmont to the Mississippi River without ever touching the ground.
If you’re looking to bring a little longevity in your life, plant a conifer.
Fruit Bearing Trees
We come now to the last branch of the evolutionary plant kingdom which are the angiosperms, the fruit bearing trees. These are the second type of seed bearing plants after the conifers. The difference with angiosperms is their seeds grow in a fruit after the flower has been fertilized.
Most of the plants and trees we eat and use fall under these group of plants and most western gardens feature these flowering plants exclusively. The diversity is staggering and there does seem to be a special relationship between us humans and these plants.
The richest diversity of these plants is in the Amazonian jungles where tens of thousands of species have been identified with new species being discovered and undiscovered ones being lost everyday. There seems to be a special symbiotic relationship between us and flowering plants, as if they are somehow dependent on our survival and vice versa. Nowhere is the more clearly expressed than with the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and their relationship with plants.
Summarizing Schultes’ decades of studying fruits and plants in the Amazon, Davis states in his book One River:
Though trained at the finest botanical institution in America, after a month in the Amazon Schultes felt increasingly like a novice. The Indians knew so much more. He had gone to South America because he had wanted to find the gifts of the rain forest: leaves that heal, fruits and seeds that supply the foods we eat, plants that could transport the individual to realms beyond his imaginings. Yet within a month he had learned that in unveiling the indigenous knowledge, his task was not merely to identify new sources of wealth but rather to understand a new vision of life itself, a profoundly different way of living in a forest.4
Part of this vision of life was one heavily steeped in myth, “of a people who did not distinguish the supernatural from the pragmatic.”
If there weren’t flowering trees, animals and humans would never have been able to survive on this planet and life on earth would have probably continued on for another billion years populated with moss, ferns and fungi.
Without flowering trees there would probably be no us. Plant one as a way of saying thanks to the crowning stage of plant evolution.
Schultes, Evan et al, Plants of the Gods, p. 18.
Haines, F. The Nez Perces. Tribesman of the Columbia Plateau, p. 14.
Simon & Schusters Guide to Trees, plate 38.
Davis, Wade, One River. Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest, p. 219.
Wow, Larry -- your essays are always an education in and of themselves!