Once again, the spaces of sky between the tangled tree branches are filling in, and soon, they will be solid masses of green on green. As children, we were limited by what our crayon boxes had to offer in the way of green when we were coloring trees. There was, if I recall it correctly, light green, dark green, yellow-green and, simply, green. But in reality, who could possibly attach a name to all those values on days when each leaf does its own peculiar dance?
Here, in these woods, I am never allowed to forget for a moment just how crucial all this greenery is to our survival as a species. Without the presence of foliage and the role it plays in the cycle of all life on this planet, both our levels of oxygen and water supplies would be threatened, as well as the purity of the air we breathe.
All green plants, from the tallest oaks to the lowliest weeds, feed themselves by a process called photosynthesis, which uses solar energy to create sugars through a chemical change using the hydrogen and oxygen molecules contained in water. The process takes place in plant cells called chloroplasts using chlorophyll, a green substance that acts as a solar collector.
Carbon dioxide is also taken in from the atmosphere to help the process along. Once complete, the plant or tree releases both the excess oxygen and the water into the air. In this way, impurities are filtered from the air, and carbon dioxide, the major gas responsible for global warming, is kept at safe levels. Foliage also helps to regulate rainfall and retain water that might otherwise cause flooding and erosion, by releasing it more slowly into the environment.
The process continues all through what’s known as the growing season, when day length is longest and sunlight is most abundant. Then, as fall approaches, and the days shorten once again, photosynthesis decreases, and plant foliage starts to wither and die. Leaves don’t simply fall from the trees and shrubs because it’s autumn. They fall because they have become useless to the plant for food production, so the connection between them and the branches they have clung to all season weaken, leaving them at the mercy of the first strong breeze that comes along to knock them down. It’s a survival tactic on the part of the plants and trees that must rid themselves of any excess foliage that they can no longer maintain.
In a true sense, each plant that grows on this earth has a role in the survival of its own species as well as that of all others. Aquatic plants feed themselves in order to be available to higher life forms that feed on them, just as an apple tree manufactures its own nutrition in order to provide us with fruit. It’s a saga whose message rings out loud and clear in these woods and other such places, where green is the first color I see upon awakening each day.
As the tree buds open fully in the wake of the most recent rains, this message is delivered to me anew each time I take a stroll past my perennial beds and see the new tops of plants emerging where before there were only dried stiff stalks. Each year, I make the mistake of assuming too soon that nothing will grow there this year, that some horticultural catastrophe befell all these plants over the winter. And each year, my premature dread dissipates quickly when I spy the first hints of new green just at the soil line.
You’d think I’d know better by now.
— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, can be reached via e-mail at rlovejoy84253@roadrunner.com.
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