In Defense of Plants

An Exploration into the Wonder of Plants

Matt Candeias

• Publisher: Mango
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781642504545
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

The Study of Plants in a Whole New Light

"Matt Candeias succeeds in evoking the wonder of plants with wit and wisdom." ? James T. Costa, PhD, executive director, Highlands Biological Station and author of Darwin's Backyard

#1 New Release in Nature & Ecology, Plants, Botany, Horticulture, Trees, Biological Sciences, and Nature Writing & Essays

Internationally-recognized blogger and podcaster Matt Candeias celebrates the nature of plants and the extraordinary world of plant organisms.

A botanist's defense. Since his early days of plant restoration, this amateur plant scientist has been enchanted with flora and the greater environmental ecology of the planet. Now, he looks at the study of plants through the lens of his ever-growing houseplant collection. Using gardening, houseplants, and examples of plants around you, In Defense of Plants changes your relationship with the world from the comfort of your windowsill.

The ruthless, horny, and wonderful nature of plants. Understand how plants evolve and live on Earth with a never-before-seen look into their daily drama. Inside, Candeias explores the incredible ways plants live, fight, and conquer new territory. Whether a blossoming botanist or a professional plant scientist, In Defense of Plants is for anyone who sees plants as more than just static backdrops to more charismatic life forms.

In this easily accessible introduction to the incredible world of plants, you'll find:

• Fantastic botanical histories and plant symbolism
• Passionate stories of flora diversity and scientific names of plant organisms
• Personal tales of plantsman discovery through the study of plants

If you enjoyed books like The Botany of Desire, What a Plant Knows, or The Soul of an Octopus, then you'll love In Defense of Plants.

Chapter 1

A Rocky Start: How I Learned to Love Plants in the Bottom of a Quarry

I have a confession: I used to think plants were boring. I wasn’t alone, either. I know for a fact that this is an opinion shared by far too many people. That’s not to say I didn’t love nature. Far from it. I have always been a nature nut, but my early interest in the outdoors was consumed by things that could move like insects, fish, lizards, and snakes. Fish were my first real obsession. My grandfather, who was an avid gardener, used to take me to a nearby creek that ran through town, and we would spend hours trying to catch minnows. Fish just seemed so otherworldly. They lived in a medium that I could not, and their entire anatomy was so different from what I was used to with my hands and legs. I loved the mystery that surrounded fish, and it never really left me.

By the time I got to high school, my obsession with aquarium fish was in full swing. I had amassed numerous fish tanks in my tiny bedroom, much to the chagrin of my parents and their electric bill. By this time, the hobby had taken on new meaning. I was always trying to recreate the kinds of habitats in which my fish originated. Instead of puke-colored gravel and a bubbly treasure chest, I opted for soft, sandy bottoms and lush vegetation. Growing plants in an aquarium is no joke. Aquatic plants are a unique case in the botanical world. Like whales, the ancestors of most aquatic plants started on land. As such, the adaptations they needed for survival underwater made them a lot pickier than the pothos my mom was growing on the windowsill. Growing most aquatic plants proved too difficult from my angsty teenage brain and meagre budget, so fish continued to command most of my attention. It would be a few more years before plants ever entered back into my life in any serious way.

When the time came to go off to college, I had managed to make the connection between my aquarium hobby and the natural world. I decided to major in zoology and was seriously considering a career in fisheries biology, and for a few years, at least, I really stuck to that plan. I was taking classes in subjects like invertebrate zoology, parasitology, and ichthyology and largely enjoying myself in the process. Whereas I always felt like a nerd and outcast in high school, I was finally coming into my own in college. The people around me were also nerdy, and I no longer had to stifle my urge to geek out about the natural world. For the first time in my life, I was feeling like I was moving in a direction that made sense.

Everything changed the day I took a field trip to a fishery. I never thought of myself as a squeamish person. Even the smell of roadkill was never overly offensive to me. That fishery cured me of such untested confidence. As soon as I stepped in the door, I was overwhelmed by the smell of dead fish. It was like walking into the seafood section of a supermarket after the power had been out for a week. I couldn’t even finish the tour. There was no way I could work in such a place, and with that realization came the feeling that my career plans were crumpling in front of me. What was I going to do?

After lots of thinking, I decided to change gears. I transferred to a different school and changed my major from zoology to ecology. Thanks to a lengthy conversation with a friend, I realized that my love of nature stemmed more from understanding how ecosystems worked than from any individual organism. I wanted to learn how all life fits together, what drives evolution, and why we see animals in some places and not others. Ecology was the perfect subject for me because it is the study of the interactions among organisms. The deeper I dove into the science of ecology, the more I realized I was never going to be bored again. There was so much to learn about what ecologists already knew and exponentially more to learn about aspects of the living world that were still a mystery. Plants still hadn’t entered the equation yet, but ecology was broadening my horizons. I was thinking more and more about how energy moved through the environment. For instance, I learned the science behind food webs, which taught me why there are more plants than herbivores, and more herbivores than predators. Every time one organism eats another, some of the energy the prey contained is lost. As such, energy diminishes from plants to herbivore to predator. Ecology was turning on lights in my brain at the right place and at the right time in my life.

It was also around this time that I landed the job that changed my life forever. It started in a class called Restoration Ecology. The professor was a kind man with a thick Canadian accent named Dr. Chris Larson. He taught the class seminar-style, and it was largely geared toward grad students. I was one of only three undergrads in the class. Each week, we were assigned readings from a series of books. One of these was an incredible work by William K. Stevens titled Miracle Under the Oaks: The Revival of Nature in America. The book detailed the trials and tribulations of a grass-roots prairie restoration effort in Chicago. Now, if you are a student of any of the biological sciences, one of the overarching themes is that humans are destroying habitats. It is so pervasive that it often seems like the only truism in biology. But here was this book celebrating a group of people who had decided that habitats didn’t need to disappear forever. They were trying to put the pieces back together. The more I learned as the semester wore on, the more I was wooed by this idea of restoration. The thought of taking damaged areas of our planet and coaxing them back into functioning ecosystems was exhilarating. I was finally learning how the theoretical principals taught in class could be applied to something real and tangible, and all of it relied on a deep understanding of the interconnectedness of nature.

As that semester was drawing to a close, I had another important realization: I needed a job. Part-time work at a pet store was not going to get me out of my parents’ house. Luckily, my classmate Ashley was moving after graduation, and her bosses tasked her with finding a replacement. I inquired further and she told me that her job was based in a limestone quarry and consisted of making sure the mining company was keeping up with environmental regulations. I fancied myself something of an environmental activist at this point in my life, so the idea of working for a mining company in environmental permitting was more than a little upsetting, to say the least. However, something in my head told me I needed to know more. As we walked out of class one afternoon, she gave me a brief rundown of what she did week to week. Most of it seemed pretty standard—make sure the company isn’t dumping too much sediment into local waterways, set up seismographs to make sure blasts weren’t damaging neighboring residential foundations, and hand out coupons for free carwashes to neighbors who complained about all of the dust that landed on their cars. I wasn’t really sold on the idea until she mentioned her side project—habitat restoration. I remember wondering why she hadn’t led with that.

She told me that the company was trying to improve its image a bit by engaging in habitat restoration projects on a few of their properties. This was quite a departure from most mining operations. Usually, mining companies do one of two things with their spent quarries. They either let them fill with water and become extremely deep ponds, or, if they are shallow enough, they backfill them, plant some grass, and sell them to housing developers. This company apparently had some unique properties that provided interesting opportunities for habitat restoration. One such property was an old sand and gravel quarry located in the southern tier of western New York. The massive deposit of sand and gravel was the result of the region’s glacial past. Whereas most of the surrounding soils consisted of heavy clays and rocky, glacial till, this chunk of land sat on top of a massive deposit of sand and gravel. As a result, it provided an interesting challenge for habitat restoration. Luckily, the mining company had gone outside its walls to ask for help from professional biologists, and a unique restoration plan was put into place.

The project at the sand and gravel quarry involved restoring the habitat for a tiny butterfly called the Karner blue (Lycaeides melissa samuelis). What this butterfly lacks in size, it makes up for in being extraordinarily beautiful. Its wings are covered in powdery blue scale that are rimmed in jet black. The bottom of each wing also sports a series of small orange crescents. You have to work to see one of these tiny butterflies in detail, but it makes the experience all the more exhilarating. Sadly, this beautiful little insect hasn’t fared so well in our industrialized society. Populations of the Karner blue once ranged from coastal regions of New York and New Jersey all the way into parts of Minnesota. Today, it can only be found in a fraction of that range and is largely reduced to isolated populations. Like so many other species on our planet, its decline is largely due to habitat destruction.

Habitat destruction comes in many forms, especially for species with complex ecological needs like the Karner blue butterfly. For starters, logging, farming, and housing development fracture the landscape, creating smaller and smaller patches of suitable habitat. Those small patches of habitat become increasingly susceptible to further degradation from the encroachment of invasive species which crowd out native species. The habitats in which the Karner blue lives are also prone to fires. Although the massive wildfires occurring in places like California and Australia are horrifically destructive to people and nature alike, many ecosystems on our planet require fire to persist. The sad part is humans generally look at fire as a negative force on the landscape that must be stopped. When Europeans arrived at this continent, they set to work making sure that fires stopped happening.

Historically, fires would have burned through Karner blue habitats every few years. In doing so, they cleared the ground of a lot of woody debris and leaves. This meant that no single fire would ever have enough fuel to get out of control. Fires also kill off vegetation like shrubs and small trees that aren’t adapted to cope with heat. This opens up the habitat, keeping trees widely spaced and allowing more light to reach the soil, which in turn allows plants that can handle fire to multiply in abundance. All these processes once provided ample habitat for species like the Karner blue butterfly. Today, thanks to a lack of fire, much of the Karner blue’s remaining habitats have become choked with invasive plants and shrubs. Encroachment of invasive plants has changed the entire dynamic of the ecosystem and, worst of all, has pushed out a species that is particularly important for the Karner blue butterfly, perennial blue lupine (Lupinus perennis).

Blue lupine is a spectacular plant. At maturity, it can stand upwards of two feet (0.6m) tall and produces lovely palmately compound leaves that look like hairy green fans. When lupine goes into reproductive mode, a spike emerges from the center of the plant. This spike is covered from top to bottom with violet-blue pea-like flowers that attract insects from far and wide. The whole spectacle is truly a sight to behold.

Most insects on our planet are specialists. They have evolved to utilize only a handful or even a single species for feeding and breeding. The Karner blue butterfly is one such species. Its caterpillars can eat only the leaves of blue lupine. No other plants will do. Losing blue lupine on the landscape means losing Karner blue butterflies. This concept was at the core of the restoration efforts in the sand and gravel pit. Ashley didn’t have to twist my ...