Body and Earth – Day 23: Plants

In reading this section of the book, the biggest point that I took away was the vast number of plants that inhabit the earth. As is mentioned, every year land plants create 150 tons of new matter. There are twenty different classes of plants that all contain chlorophyll as well as 380,000 species of plants known. The largest plant family is surprisingly the orchid which has over 35,000 species and range in various sizes (pages 165 – 166). I had no idea that there were so many different kinds of orchids especially because I know how touchy of a plant they are to take care of. It is also amazing to think that they are capable of selling for such a high amount at stores especially when there are so many different species and varieties available.

While I had to adapt the Locating a tree through touch (page 168) exercise because I did not have a partner, I was able to feel all the components of the tree that was in my place through touch. The bark was fairly soft in comparison to other tree bark I had felt and I was also able to feel the leaves of the tree which were soft and contained veins. I have had some experience with pressing flowers and drying leaves to use in making candles or cards, so it was interesting to think back to those experiences and how I always would look at the patterns that were created by the natural part of the leaves. The Place visit: Attention to plants (page 170) allowed me to become familiar with some of the plants in my backyard through labeling them their correct names. For example, there is a Deer Fern in the corner of our yard which is in the shade of the large tree. Although I was not able to determine the type of tree that it actually is, it looks as though it is a large Ficus tree because of the leaves and the bark characteristics. I was also more aware of the sound that the leaves of the fern and tree made as the wind blew through the backyard. While subtle, listening specifically for the sounds made me feel more connected with my surroundings overall.

The above photo is a picture of some of the leaf items that I found in "my place". There were smaller bushes that were dying (illustrated by the long pieces in the center) and even smaller, healthy plants as characterized by the smaller leaf clumps. Lastly, there is a large tree that is in the corner of the backyard and has the larger leaves.