Plants Are Tight
When people talk nature and wildlife, they talk animals. Not exclusively, but it’s pretty much a given. Something people do not talk nearly enough about is plants, which are tight. This essay (series of paragraphs) is a thorough analysis of plants.
Many plants, as I’m sure you’re well aware, have leaves and grow upwards from the ground. The one pictured above can be included in this description. Definitely some big ol’ green leaves pictured bottom left. No questions about it. Having said that — draw your attention to the apparatus featured in the center of the picture. It calls to mind the movie Avatar, or something similar. Don’t even know what I’m looking at. Are those seed pods, or the beginning of new leaves? In any case the red spiky things are fascinating, and you see them all over the stems as well. Animals, yes, have eyes, and move around their environments, but plants have all sorts of wild shapes like the one you see above. And we’re only getting started.
Now look at this bad boy in the middle — never mind the grasses and other stuff going on in the perimeter. Not important. The one in the middle is the object of your undivided attention. Notice how you can barely even see the trunk, and yet how wide it goes. That’s the magic of plants!!! Crazy that this thing stays low, droops needly leaves, and yet gets it done nonetheless. Who told it to grow like that? Does it have a mind of its own? Does it just do what’s natural 24/7? Clearly, the answer is yes to at least 1 of those 3 questions (the first one). There’s also been studies that trees talk to each other — if true, this tree is totally the slime of the group, always talking nonsense. It grows like a practical joke. I love it.
Witness this too. All sorts of plants, grasses, trees, shrubbery growing in unison in a beautiful town environment. Summer brings out the best in these bad boys. You have small bushes just a few inches off the ground, jam packed with stems competing to get a little Vitamin D, and then you have trees that are about 30 feet tall. Forget dunking, these drop the ball in the basket from above. These trees put Yao Ming to shame. These bad boys grow upwards for no less than 30 years. Imagine how windy it gets up there? Imagine how swole these root systems must be to keep them in place? We’re talking excellent diversity above. To be among all these plants, for real, just brings a sense of well being to the soul. Absolutely cannot complain in the presence of something like this.
That truly does make it all the worse when people neglect and trash the plants in public places around us. As you can see above, there is various trash strewn about this nice section of bushes, wedged between sidewalk and parking lot. Someone has even placed a Ravens pizza box on top of a bush, as if it were a trash receptacle. This is no way to treat the world around us. These plants are rocking forest green and crimson red to beautify an otherwise drab scene, and are rewarded with food leftovers and non biodegradable plastic waste. The fence next to these bushes are also the remains of a literal tree massacre. Imagine if you and your boys were posted up on the block and next you you someone nailed a bunch of human bodies together to keep trespassers out. Gruesome. That is literally the life these sad bushes live. It’s the least we can do to be better, take care, and appreciate the nature around us. Because ultimately, plants belong in a place like Exhibit E.
We have somehow taken you through this entire article without naming a single plant pictured above by scientific name. Here at RGP, we are not scientists, nor climate experts, nor ecology professors. We are good people who dig nature. And who appreciate it and keep it pristine at every turn. Follow theregrowthproject on IG and subscribe at patreon.com/theregrowthproject. There’s work to do, and we love your support! Also, publishing patron only blogs every so often for Friends of the Program.
