THE FLOWERS THAT BLOOM IN THE SPRING

Rex Burress

Blossoming flowers usually means pollination and various kinds of pollinators are involved, which is the main motive of the blooming crowd on Table Mountain in the springtime. At the same time, you know all of those exposed attractions of the female body underlies human reproduction,too!

When you get down into the life histories of each species, the whole process is remarkable! Each of those nearly 300 species of floral inhabitants up there on T. Mountain, has a certain set of procedures involved to complete the life cycle, largely combined with an insect species to transfer the pollen, such as various bees, especially honey bees, being involved no matter how romantically we might view the scene.

All of that colorful flower beauty has not been created strictly for human admiration, but more specifically as an attractant for the plant's co-conspirators in the life-game. The flower not only flashes its color of enticement to searching insects, but rewards them with a sip of sweet nectar as a gift exchange. The transportation of sexual components is the foundation of life, even though we might prefer the aesthetic side of nature's creations. We've heard that story before, but it never grows old.

We've heard the butterfly story over and over again, too, but anything as wondrous as metamorphism deserves to be repeated. Butterflies, such as the monarch, has a closer tie to flowers than bees, because in addition to the nectar-pollen function, milkweed plants feed the monarch larvae and supports the colorful chrysalis. Which leaves us wondering what came first; the flower or the butterfly?

Of equal fascination is how plants and animals honor their time systems—that inner impetus to do what they are dictated to do by their biological clocks. Naturalist John Burroughs said, “they know without knowing they know.” Call it instinct or divine guidance, when it comes time to arise, they know how to do it. The summons is most apparent in plant seeds that await their time and proper soil conditions. If there is drought, the seed may just skip the projected resurrection until later.

Even more sensitive to favorable growth-factors is mushrooms. If it is dry during the fall-run of fungi growth, the species that grow at that time may just skip it until a following wet season, since mushroom mycelium needs moisture to grow. Not so, though, in the 2016 CA autumn/winter when excessive rain stirred a fantastic fungi uprising!

If trees can stay rooted in the deluges of a wet winter, they, too, especially deciduous trees like the valley oak, are like flowers in that they are angiosperms, or true flowering plants that bloom and bear seeds. The valley oak is like other deciduous trees, perennial, sap rising from the roots in springtime to make new leaves and flowers, but also able to reproduce a new tree from the acorn seed. Furthermore, the valley oak, [Quercus lobata], is in the 'white oak group,' indigenous to California.

Oroville Mayor Linda Dahlmeier stated that the plant she most admired was the oak, standing stately year after year and representing grandiose tenacity, more enchanting than a colorful dandelion whose fugitive seeds go flying away in the wind.

Though not having a spectacular blossom like the flowers of Table Mountain, oaks do feature wind-pollinated reproductive parts, male and female emanating from the same tree, a condition called monoecious. The male flower consists of long catkins showering pollen into the wind to fertilize small female spikes on another oak tree. After the male finishes, the female spike opens on their shared tree to receive pollen from another tree in cross-pollination evidently to avoid in-breeding. There's more, but that's all I can try to explain for now! Isn't nature wonderful!

“Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.” --David Icke

“Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fullness and completion?” --Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Faith sees a beautiful blossom in a bulb, a lovely garden in a seed, and a giant oak in an acorn.” --Ward

As an end-note, I noticed the flowers and oaks on Table Mountain, in my check on 2-27-17, are late, probably due to cold rains and clouds of February.