Flowers and Berries
I fell in love with Alaska partly because of the flowers. My first journey to this magnificent state was in June and every waking moment I made new discoveries of overwhelming esthetic as well as scientific impact. From delicate, small foamflower sprays to stunning, erect lupine spikes, there were flowers everywhere to feed my excitement. But we all know that one of the properties of flowers that make them so irresistible to us is their ephemeral existence. On my return to Alaska this late August I did not expect to find the same flowers to welcome me, but I was excited by the prospect of finding seed pods, fruits, and especially berries.
Today, a group of us were dropped off by Zodiac for a long hike in an absolutely splendid area of old growth forest. All age classes of hemlock and spruce formed the main structure of the forest, but due to the many openings in the canopy, a rich and varied undergrowth of shrubs and herbs grew above the soft, spongy moss layer. And indeed, there was an abundance of berries. Under foot, beds of bunchberries flashed their tightly packed clusters of small, intensely red fruit, each placed in the middle of four evenly spaced green leaves. These miniature dogwoods certainly know how to charm the hiker twice: first with their symmetrical white flower-bracts in spring, and now, with their blood-red fruit. But also in the shrub layer, berries were very much in evidence, both red and black huckleberries hung like small lanterns from the delicate green branches. They were advertising their food value to the birds, which will inadvertently become the dispersers of the seeds that are packaged inside the berries. As our trail led uphill into a muskeg area, several other plant species displayed an abundance of berries. Black crowberries hung from prickly looking creeping branches, large pale red cranberries were just ripening on remarkably small plants, and the occasional cloudberry plant seemed to tempt us to stop a while and partake of its delicately flavored fruits.
Why are we humans so strongly attracted to the visual stimuli provided by flowers and by the minuscule packages of flavor that we call berries? Is it simply that they are indicating to us a healthy, productive environment, or are we subconsciously aware of the deeper symbolisms of ephemeral beauty and rebirth?
I fell in love with Alaska partly because of the flowers. My first journey to this magnificent state was in June and every waking moment I made new discoveries of overwhelming esthetic as well as scientific impact. From delicate, small foamflower sprays to stunning, erect lupine spikes, there were flowers everywhere to feed my excitement. But we all know that one of the properties of flowers that make them so irresistible to us is their ephemeral existence. On my return to Alaska this late August I did not expect to find the same flowers to welcome me, but I was excited by the prospect of finding seed pods, fruits, and especially berries.
Today, a group of us were dropped off by Zodiac for a long hike in an absolutely splendid area of old growth forest. All age classes of hemlock and spruce formed the main structure of the forest, but due to the many openings in the canopy, a rich and varied undergrowth of shrubs and herbs grew above the soft, spongy moss layer. And indeed, there was an abundance of berries. Under foot, beds of bunchberries flashed their tightly packed clusters of small, intensely red fruit, each placed in the middle of four evenly spaced green leaves. These miniature dogwoods certainly know how to charm the hiker twice: first with their symmetrical white flower-bracts in spring, and now, with their blood-red fruit. But also in the shrub layer, berries were very much in evidence, both red and black huckleberries hung like small lanterns from the delicate green branches. They were advertising their food value to the birds, which will inadvertently become the dispersers of the seeds that are packaged inside the berries. As our trail led uphill into a muskeg area, several other plant species displayed an abundance of berries. Black crowberries hung from prickly looking creeping branches, large pale red cranberries were just ripening on remarkably small plants, and the occasional cloudberry plant seemed to tempt us to stop a while and partake of its delicately flavored fruits.
Why are we humans so strongly attracted to the visual stimuli provided by flowers and by the minuscule packages of flavor that we call berries? Is it simply that they are indicating to us a healthy, productive environment, or are we subconsciously aware of the deeper symbolisms of ephemeral beauty and rebirth?
