Roots

Trace your roots back far enough and you finally reach... fungi. It's said that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. Though to be fair, not by much. But if you were worried that you might be descended from apes, you can relax. You are actually descended from some kind of proto-fungal flagellate. And of course, before that you were descended from a broad scattering of elements formed in exploding stars.

Scientists have even traced the unfolding of our universe pretty much back to its birth, even to before light came into existence. Somehow, the kernel of what we are today existed even way back then.

As for the mother that birthed that magic kernel, I'm sorry but that is not just unknown but unknowable. I'd like to invent a story to fill in the gaps of how the universe came into being and how a bunch of elements formed in exploding stars came to life, but if I did, it would involve bobcats and coyotes and toyon berries because those are things I kind of understand. So instead of inventing a story like I did in my last post, I'm just going to go along with Iris DeMent and let the mystery be.

I'd hoped to find some nice fruitings of large fungi last weekend, but all I could find were variously sized troops of little Mycena species. But with any luck, Santa will soon bring the Sleeping Maiden a nice variety of chanterelles and things.

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Three-Toed Trunkasaurus

I'd just clomped across a small wooden footbridge after consulting with a bobcat about the proper way to dispose of gopher guts when out of the corner of my eye I saw a sextet of elves marching to the beat of a clapping newt. 

"Watch out! Watch out!" they cried from beneath a flap of flossy moss. "The three-toed trunkasaurus heard your noisy clomping and is coming to eat you up!" 

"Nonsense," I retorted as I snorted in derisive nomenclature. "I have it on good authority—from Granny Gray Fox herself—that in the month of December, T3 eats nothing but chocolate-covered rose hips, and nothing or anything else!"

"Fargenswargen!" said the elves with one voice.

A chill went down my spine.

A creaking of wood did I hear overhead, and a swaying of branch so large that my heartbeat fell into rhythm with the newts: a-CLUMP-a-thumpa, CLUMP-aBOOP-awhumpa. And so on, for what seemed like a few seconds or a few days. I can't be sure. All my certitudes have turned to platitudes, and moss grows upon my knees.

Said I, "I see thee, T3," and a toothy grin did I shine. "Would you like to try my chocolate-covered rose hips? They are fresh from South Lonesome Pine!"

A scarier moment I've never had, not in wood, nor dell, nor hydrothermal vent. But once again, as again and before, I stood on my ground, shouted "Fargenswargen!" with the elves, and made myself  everlasting beneath green Yggdrasil, the Axis of the World—the friend of elves, spelunkers, and footbridge clunkers, of bobcats and foxes, of mosses and lichens—and even of three-toed trunkasauruses.

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Canyon Maple

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As I was absorbed with looking through the viewfinder while making small adjustments to focus the camera and get the ballhead into place in order to compose the scene to taste I suddenly heard a twig snap behind me. It was one of those times where your body is already turning to look before the sound has completely registered in your consciousness, and I kind of jumped a little when a bearded, gnome-like man appeared seemingly out of nowhere on the trail a few feet away. The man pulled up short, perhaps as startled to see me as I was to see him. Not more than a second elapsed before our minds registered the "all clear" and we both said hello and continued about our business. 

I was wondering, where does the yellow go? I placed a mostly yellow hazel leaf on the ground next to "compostable" plastic stuff in my yard, as a sort of benchmark. I poked a tent stake through the leaf so it wouldn't blow away. The very next day the leaf had turned brown, whereas other leaves that had been on the ground much longer were still yellow. I did it again with another leaf and the same thing happened. Poking a hole in the leaf made it turn brown much faster.

I was also wondering, where does the green go? And while I'm at it, how do the green and yellow get in there in the first place? 

It turns out the tree, in this case Bigleaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum), has to make the chlorophyll (and the xanthophylls and carotenoids). The fact that a "lowly" plant knows how to put together all the chemical steps necessary to do that is quite impressive, to say the least. "Biosynthesis" is a great word for a magical process. 

I was just checking out online how plants make chlorophyll molecules and was interested to learn that the chemical steps are the same, up to a point, as that needed to make heme. Add magnesium and you get green chlorophyll. Add iron and you get red heme. Both occur in plants, and if you try a web search of plant heme, you will get a jillion hits related to a certain company that makes veggie burgers. Which might annoy you if you just want to know what the difference is between plant heme and animal heme. Because if they are the same molecule, that's pretty interesting. And even if they aren't identical, it's still pretty interesting.

According to Wikipedia, "The enzymatic process that produces heme ... is highly conserved across biology."

Part of the way trees work is the same as part of the way people work. I like to just let that sink in and circulate in a nice bath of neurotransmitters for a minute. Ahh, yes. So relaxing.

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