My special greeting to the unusually high number of new subscribers this time around. And my best wishes to everyone for the holidays and the new year. I hope this finds you happy, well, and exploring.
Those of you who are primarily interested in news of upcoming tours, courses, and lectures may wish to scroll down to Part II immediately. Latest book and video recommendations are contained in Part III.
PART I. NONLINEAR SOLILOQUIES & SERMONS
A. Orchids, Border Collies, and What It Means to Be Symbiotic
Last Saturday, after finishing a lab I was teaching at the Chicago Botanic Garden, I grabbed my old red-maple walking stick and took a constitutional around the long loop road that passes through the Garden's Dixon Prairie. At one point, as I was coming around a bend in the path on Evening Island, I was greeted by a sopping-wet but very amiable border collie whose name, I later learned, was Freedom. A moment later we were joined by his companion, an equally outgoing young woman who was the human representative of Wild Goose Chase, the rather predictably named company contracted by the Garden to keep the Canada geese from colonizing every available square centimeter of mowed turf.
Dixon Prairie, in the Chicago Botanic Garden. No wild-goose chase is necessary in this part of the Garden, where tall grasses and forbs predominate. Instead, the Canada geese now infesting suburban locations congregate where the grass is kept short. It's our own obsession with mowed turf -- the ultimate emblem of the Unnatural -- that caused this problem in the first place. (Photo by Raymond Wiggers.)
The conversation that ensued was one of the most fascinating I've had in a long time. While Freedom snuffled about for field mice in a nearby plot of ornamental grasses, the young lady and I discussed the intricacies of animal behavior, the remarkable intelligence of herding dogs, the art of running an offbeat service-sector business, and the joys of spending most of one's work week outdoors. What struck me most powerfully, however, was the interaction between woman and dog, expressed in unconscious body language and the occasional verbal cue, as though the two were in fact one composite organism. At times they seemed to share a common nervous system.
There have already been enough writers who have rhapsodized on the connection between Canis familiaris and Homo sapiens, and on how since the dawn of human history both predator species have benefited materially and psychologically from the union. So it comes as no surprise that that sacred buzzword, symbiosis, is used again and again to describe the partnership. My only real objection to that threadbare term is that it's too vague, at least in this case.
Symbiosis refers to any sustained interaction between two individuals of different species, whether it benefits both or just one. Ecologists split that all-too-general concept into two more specific terms: mutualism, where both parties do indeed benefit, and parasitism, where one party flourishes at the expense, and even at the torment, of the other. So dewy-eyed practitioners of the Bambi School of Neo-Rousseauean Nature Writing should beware: if you think you're necessarily conferring two-sided sweetness on a relationship by simply calling it symbiotic, think again, and use the more precise term.
Fortunately, concrete examples of both forms of symbiosis are easy to come by. Freedom and his bipedal pal are definitely a textbook illustration of mutualism: both get perks for their work by helping each other. As far as parasitism goes, the biological literature abounds with grisly accounts of wasp larvae methodically dining on helpless caterpillars, and so forth.
A look at the Master Race. I have found this genus of orchid, Stanhopea, to be among the most parasitic on my soul. It flowers once every two or three years, if one is lucky; the flowers at their peak last a day or less before they turn to mush. However, the flowers are large, dramatic -- they grow out of the bottom of specially designed pots -- and exude a honeylike scent. In exchange for this brief moment of ego gratification, the poor exploited orchidist is forced to lavish daily and very exacting care on an otherwise homely plant. (Photo by Raymond Wiggers.)
However, no example of parasitism is grislier than the kind found in my own home, where scores of ruthless cultivated orchids have, to put it bluntly, enslaved me. Using some sort of pernicious subliminal control -- I think they exhale a mind-altering chemical through their stomata -- they have taken over my windows and most of my furniture's horizontal surfaces, and worse yet, they've forced me to live my life in the context of their own preferred climates and watering schedules. Well, it's a brutal form of existence for an exploited minion like me, but I foresee a better day, when human beings will rise up against their cruel plant-kingdom overlords and treat them with at least as much contempt as they now show us. Now that I think of it, that's already happening in the houseplant departments of certain mega-stores.
B. The Oxygen Sermon (the first in a continuing series on the constituents of the atmosphere)
It should happen to all of us: on some chosen day, we wake to the stark realization of how strange our planet really is. Imagine looking out the window of your home and seeing not some familiar urban or suburban neighborhood, but an incomparably complex system of frenetic organismal activity. And I don't mean that in just the human sense, with the cars choking the highways, acres of residential clonescapes, or people crowding each other in stores.
I mean it more broadly: in the sense of the soil seething with restless, probing roots and millions of unseen creatures; in the air full of trillions of insects and pollen and spores; and in the rivers, lakes and seas vitalized by competing and cooperating life. Two hundred years ago, most Americans could have sensed this, because they still lived close to the land and under the open sky. But now we are so encapsulated by our rolling-fortress vehicles, so distracted from our solitude by inane cell-phone conversations, and so dependent on the demands of making money indoors, that we often assume our species is the only one that is crucial or fully alive. In short, we have lost our way to the living landscape that is everywhere around us.
Once small way of regaining perspective is to consider how many different ways of living different organisms have devised on this manic planet. For example, some archeaobacteria live off methane in sewage-treatment plants or depend on sulfur compounds spewing out of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Others can live in parched saline environments or at temperatures above the boiling point of water. In contrast, many more complex organisms have inherited a more dangerous form of respiration that employs one of the universe's most dangerous and potentially toxic substances--elemental oxygen. As flammable as it is, it makes food into a splendid high-octane fuel for creatures that have learned how to tame its powerful reactivity. The result for those who do is a more vigorous and efficient metabolism.
A multihued cloudscape over the countour-farmed fields of Sauk County, Wis- consin. The most unusual feature of the modern atmosphere is its super- abundance of free oxygen, a substance that was a deadly poison to many of Earth's earliest inhabitants. (Photo by Raymond Wiggers).
We regard free oxygen as our absolute birthright, yet no other world we've studied so far has an atmosphere that contains more than the merest trace of it. Our planet's abundance of O2 is largely the result of photosynthesis, a remarkably complex series of chemical reactions that must be carried on relentlessly from minute to minute and generation to generation by plants, algae, certain plankton, and the blue-green bacteria. Were this intricate, Rube-Goldberg process ever to stop, it wouldn't be long before the free oxygen (after all, one of the most aggressively social of all elements) would combine itself with other substances and leave most of Earth's residents gasping for breath.
Steeply dipping strata of the 1.1-billion-year-old Freda Sandstone along the Lake Superior shore, on the border of Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Many geologists contend that these ancient "redbeds," which are rich in iron oxide, prove that the atmosphere already had a substantial amount of free oxygen by this relatively early point in geologic time. (Photo by Raymond Wiggers.)
Still, we are no doubt lucky that the current portion of free oxygen in the atmosphere isn't any higher than the current 21 percent. Recent geochemical analyses of ancient environments suggest that there was at least one period in Earth history, approximately three hundred million years ago, when the atmosphere contained a significantly higher percentage of oxygen due to widespread tropical plant growth. In those days, forest fires must have been even serious affairs than they are now. And had there been any human cigarette smoker present, he wouldn't have lasted long. The simple act of flicking a Zippo lighter would have been the same as aiming a lit blowtorch at his face.
C. Climbing Mount Sneffels
"One sacred memory from childhood," wrote Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "is the best education." When it comes to the development of my own interest in geology, I have approximately twenty-seven. Among them is the recollection of the many hours I spent as a child poring through The World We Live In, one of those Fifties-Era coffee-table books produced by the editors of Life magazine. I have a copy of this leather-bound relic still, and I refer to it as I write this. By modern standards, the color illustrations are murky and pale, the prose is florid, and the science significantly outdated, but a chill still runs down my spinal cord when I open the book and gaze for the thousandth time at artist Chesley Bonestell's recreation of our planet in its first, Hadean Eon. The caption for this painting reads, "Rivers of molten stone flow across the earth . . . Here and there frozen masses of rock rise above the fiery mass, now etched with red and gold mosaics as it cools and forms a surface slag." The huge infant Moon, glowing dull pink, hangs on the horizon, and in the foreground meteorites with glowing trails splash soundlessly into the magma sea. One page later, another Bonestell landscape shows the onset of the next eon, the Archean: the crust has cooled to the point that a maze of waterfalls -- water, liquid at last -- can pour from the jagged margin of a protocontinent into the newly formed World Ocean. Once a child's mind is imprinted with such images as these, there is no road back into the normal.
A relic from the Archean Eon. This famous outcrop of basaltic pillow lava in Ely, Minnesota may lack the drama of a Chesley Bonestell painting, but it demonstrates that 2.7 billion years ago the Earth's surface was cool enough to bear liquid water. Pillow lava are formed when molten rock lava erupts at the bottom of an ocean or lake. The rapid chilling effect makes the lava solidify into rounded or ellipsoidal forms. Incidentally, this site will be one of the stops on this coming spring's four-day trip to Minnesota's Superior Country and Iron District. (Photo by Raymond Wiggers.)
I crossed another threshold into geomania when I saw the Hollywood adaptation of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Even as a kid I thought it was a pretty awful movie; my father had read the whole book to me by the time I was five and I was more than ready to be a harsh critic of any interpretation that interfered with what my mind's eye had already seen. But there is one transcendent moment when the heroes of the story, led by James Mason, climb Iceland's volcanic Mount Sneffels. Their intent is to behold, at precisely noon on the right day, the sun illuminate the opening to the only direct passage to the Earth's core. At this point, the film soundtrack, by Bernard Hermann, is magnificent. Just as the slanting shaft of light reveals the doorway to the underworld, the acidic blare of the high brass is punctuated by three massive chords on an unstopped organ. The true path is revealed and the adventure begins. The fact that the movie later degenerates into scenes of Pat Boone playing the concertina and a rather reluctant battle between magnified pet iguanas, who obviously would prefer to be eating fruit cocktail in a nice warm terrarium, is beside the point.
The stratovolcano Stromboli. From Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth: "We were in the midst of the Mediterranean Sea, on an island of the Æolian archipelago, in the ancient Strongyle, where Æolus kept the winds and the storms chained up, to be let loose at his will." Note the characteristic Mediterranean sea haze, largely produced by salt crystals suspended in the atmosphere. (Photo taken aboard USS LIttle Rock by Raymond Wiggers.)
While I regret to say I have yet to get to Iceland and Mount Sneffels -- one of my lingering personal goals -- I have at an earlier stage in my life climbed Stromboli, the volcano in the Mediterranean Sea's Aeolian Islands through which Verne's adventures made their hasty ascent back to the surface. I know many of you have your own favorite dining spot, so I thought I'd share with you my own, an al fresco shelter on the rim of Stromboli's active crater. There, after getting sunburned and sandblasted all the way up, my companions and I had a dinner of white table wine, a block of hard cheese, and some Sicilian sausage we'd picked up at the alimentari at the foot of the volcano. Not only was it a room with a view. It also featured loud rumblings, minor earthquakes every minute or two, and the occasional cloud of sulfuric-acid mist.
The finest in outdoor-dining venues. A low rock shelter at Stromboli's summit. By now, it has probably been destroyed by earthquakes and eruptions. The haze that makes the sea in the background so indistinct was caused not by salt crystals but by sulfur-rich gases coming from the vent. (Photo by Raymond Wiggers.)
PART II. UPCOMING EVENTS
A. Tours
Thanks to those of you who responded to my tour suggestions for this coming spring. As a result, I've determined that the most popular trip proposed is the four-day minivan excursion to northeastern Minnesota in late May. I will have a prospectus worked up by early January and will send it to everyone who has already expressed an interest in going. Anyone else want a tour description? If so, let me know.
The rapids of the St. Louis River, just south of Duluth. At this locale, Minnesota field-trip participants will explore integrative natural history of the North Woods while they enjoy some of the most dramatic scenery in the Upper Midwest. Other stops include impressive waterfalls, glacially etched outcrops along the Superior shore, and a visit to an underground iron mine. (Photo by Raymond Wiggers.)
Separately, I have, with special encouragement from some of you, started up my long-delayed plan to run a series of Mini-Treks -- two-hour nature hikes in some of the Upper Midwest's most botanically and geologically significant parks and nature preserves. These hikes are designed to be inexpensive, informal, frequently offered, and consequently more available to a larger number of people interested in learning about the geology, ecology, and botany of the region. Keep in mind that my tours make great holiday and birthday gifts. Upon payment I will be most happy to promptly send out Mini-Trek gift certificates, which can be used on any hike.
For more on all these tours, be they long or short, see my newly updated Tours Page.
B. Courses
- My offerings at the Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG) this coming spring are Reading the Landscape of Northeastern Illinois, which in my own conflated opinion should be a requirement for citizenship for all residents of the region, and a new course, Life in Stone: Fossils of the Chicago Region. When last I did this kind of fossils course at the Morton Arboretum, it was very popular. If you're interested, you may wish to sign up soon.
- The next incarnation of the CBG's Introduction to Botany and Taxonomy starts in January. I have now taught this more frequently than any other of the sixty-one courses I've done in the past four years. And I still absolutely love it.
The Chicago Botanic Garden's Introduction to Botany and Taxonomy -- the next session begins this coming January -- is an indoors lecture-and-lab course well suited to the winter months. (Photo by Raymond Wiggers.)
- I'm especially looking forward to my new Stone, Sediments, and Shifting Shorelines: Architectural Geology of Chicago Region. It will be held downtown at the Chicago Architecture Foundation this spring. I delight in showing people the geology of Chicago's great buildings, and this will be a large component of the hybrid lecture-and-walking-tour course.
- And here's some breaking news. The summer schedule of Naturalist Certicate Program courses at the Chicago Botanic Garden will include these courses of mine:
Exploring Mosses, Algae and Lichens. The organisms we'll cover are every bit as fascinating and crucial to the ecosystem as all those overly obvious woody plants and wildflowers.
Fruticose ("shrublike") lichens grow epiphytically on the trunk and branches of a young tree on the upper slope of Rose Hill, Grand Portage National Monument, Minnesota. Lichens -- which have long been thought to be mutualistic associations of fungi and algae or cyanobacteria --may in fact be examples of slow parasitism instead. We'll discuss this intriguing composite organisms, and also investigate algae and bryophytes, in a Chicago Botanic Garden course this summer. (Photo by Raymond Wiggers.)
Small Trees and Shrubs of the Chicago Region. This course is offered once every two years. The previous session was very popular. Get to know those neglected native and naturalized woody plants: hawthorns, wild plums, witch hazel, spicebush, New Jersey tea, prairie redroot, sassafras, pawpaw, etc. You'll even learn to identify poison sumac from a respectful distance. We will also ritually desecrate two species of introduced buckthorn.
Tree Identification & Ecology. This is one of the gold-standard, basic courses every Midwestern naturalist and horticulturist should take. It, too, is only offered every other year. If I can swing it, one field trip will include a visit to Warren Woods, an extremely rare stand of original-growth maple-beech forest, in southwestern Michigan.
Three other organizations have expressed an interest in my teaching for them in the first half of '04, but until I hear something concrete from them I won't go into details. Keep abreast of latest developments by visiting my Courses Page.
PART III. RECOMMENDED BOOKS & VIDEOS/DVDs
A. Horticulture
- New England author and horticulturist Tovah Martin is to be lauded for Once Upon a Windowsill, her history of houseplant cultivation and use. It's a notable foray into an unjustly neglected subject. (Large-format hardback, Timber Press, ISBN 0581921203.)
B. Botany Field Guides
- Of the several botanical guidebooks to the American Southeast I used this past summer, two were of special note: Tiner's Coastal Wetland Plants of the Southeastern States (paperbound, U. of Massachusetts Press, ISBN 0870238337) and Porcher and Rayner's A Guide to the Wildflowers of South Carolina (paperbound, U. of South Carolina Press, ISBN 1570034389). The latter has clear line drawings of the plants it describes; the latter, color photos are varying helpfulness. What makes the Porcher and Rayner text so impressive is the additional information on their state's plant communities. Also included are ethnobotanical descriptions and even suggested plant-viewing itineraries. I could plan a three-week expedition in this relatively small state just using this one book.
C. Ethnobotany & Economic Botany
- One major section of the ethnobotany courses I've taught at Barat College and Lake Forest College is on the history and basic chemistry of psychoactive drugs. Here's a big surprise: college students find this particularly interesting. While I in no way condone the recreational use of these substances, I've discovered that one of the best ways to point out Western society's early, laissez-faire fling with them is to show clips from the wonderful Sherlock Holmes series starring the bipolar genius of Jeremy Brett. These are some of episodes that pertain: an opium-den sequence showing narcotic effects of smoking raw opium (The Man with the Twisted Lip), the terrifying effects of a hallucinogenic alkaloid, presumably from an African member of the aroid family (The Devil's Foot), and the stimulant and addictive effects of Holmes' use of cocaine when he's depressed (The Musgrave Ritual and The Devil's Foot, again). This series is now on DVDs issued by MPM Home Video.
D. Vulcanology
- I recommend Victoria Bruce's No Apparent Danger (paperback, Perennial, ISBN 0060958901), a journalistic account of two deadly volcanic disasters in Colombia -- the immensely tragic Nevado del Ruiz eruption and mudflow, which killed over 23,000 people, and the Galeras debacle, where visiting vulcanologists attending a conference field trip were killed or injured by an eruption that shouldn't have been a surprise. Ms. Bruce is a geologist herself, but she regrettably lacks the narrative power to describe the apocalyptic force of the Nevado del Ruiz event in a really visceral way. Contrast her somewhat detached technique with the haunting account of Pliny the Younger, describing the A.D. 79 eruption of Vesuvius, which is one of the all-time classics of natural-history reportage. Where Ms. Bruce shines, however, is in the courage of her convictions, as displayed in her rooting out those responsible for not issuing or heeding the volcanoes' own warning signals.
PART IV. THIS ISSUE'S PARTING QUOTATION
This may or may not be an accurate forecast of the winter in the Great Lakes Region this year, but I suspect it's a pretty good description of life in general:
