September 09, 1993 - Finding Joy in BloomsFocus on Nature
Finding Joy in Blooms
By Paul Stoutenburgh
Yesterday I passed a man stooping
over a bucket of handsome gladioli at a
farm stand. He seemed deep in thought
as he tried to decide which of the many
beautiful blossoms to choose. Perhaps
it was the fast time he'd ever looked into
the wonder and beauty of such a flower.
Could it be he was completely struck
with awe? It was like the plight of a
small boy loose in an ice cream parlor.
The choice was overwhelming.
Flowers at our roadside stands are re-
latively new here on the East End.
Thirty or 40 years ago, few farmers
would have thought to plant Rowers for
sale. Their world was one of babies, the
necessities of life. As time passed and
they saw how rewarding Rowers could
be, they moved into ornamental crops
as a sideline.
It's taken Americans a long time to
catch up with the Europeans in the love
of flowers. Perhaps as a young nation
we were too busy to take the time and
hadn't realized that, as the old saying
goes, "Man cannot live by bread alone."
Whenever I see a documentary film
about a great city or a rural town in the
old country, a flower mart is usually
part of the general picture.
Perhaps the upsurge in flower buying
in this country came in the '60s when
flowers were a sign of peace and new
hope. Whatever the cause, it is a good
sign that people are showing their feel-
ings by buying flowers. They remind us
'that we haven't completely followed the
materialistic path and that a way of life
van have a higher meaning with plea-
sure and satisfaction found in simple
and natural things.
It seems each roadside stand special-
izes in a certain flower. Some raise sta-
tice, others zinnias and snapdragons,
others baby's breath and gladioli and
most recently some have started rais-
ing sunflowers. Each has its own clien-
tele who know what they want and stop
:by each week to pick up their own spe-
cial bouquet.
Besides the general public —who seem
to be appreciating flowers more and
-more—there are the botanists who fol-
low the flora of our East End to its lim-
-its. Just last week my wife and I
traveled with some of these dedicated
.people to Montauk in hopes of finding a
'rare yellow orchid that was expected to
be in bloom at that time. This pale
fringed orchid was found way back in
1926 when the great naturalist Roy Lat-
ham of Orient discovered it at a location
in East Hampton. From then on there
were discussions as to its true identity.
Was it a new orchid or perhaps a hy-
brid of the orange-crested orchid? ]Now,
just recently, after much study and re-
search, the consensus is that this pale
yellow fringed orchid is truly a new spe-
cies that will be added to the long list of
orchids Roy Latham described in his
publication called Distribution of Wild
Orchids on Long Island, 1944.
We not only found the orchid but had
a wonderful day in the field with these
exciting naturalists. We tramped from
seashore to dune country, stopping here
and there to identify a particular kind
of goldenrod, watch a Monarch butterfly
linger on a bright orange butterfly weed
or photograph an exceptionally fine
cluster of rose hips.
These large rose hips, which are the
seed pods of the salt spray rose (Rosa
rugosa) make a fine jelly or add color
to almost any preserves. When the hips
are dead ripe the fruity part of the rose
hip is quite palatable. I've often sam-
pled them when on long hikes for they'll
quench your thirst plus make an inter-
esting snack along the way. The inside
of the rose hip is loaded with seeds. It's
little wonder that they have spread so
well along our shores.
The vast majority of seeds contain
enough food for the seed to germinate
and get started as a plant. Once growth
starts, the roots go straight down and
the plant goes straight up. Have you
ever wondered what gives plants this di-
rection? For many years the riddle
stumped biologists but it was later found
out that hormones triggered this
straight up and straight down growth.
When looked at through a magnifying
glass, seeds show themselves in a dazz-
ling array of shapes and sizes. Some are
so small, like the seeds of an orchid, that
they literally drift in the air, while oth-
ers like the coconut are huge and hard
shelled. Usually nature squanders its
seeds by the hundreds and sometimes
thousands in hopes that a few will ger-
minate. Most seeds come in a neatly
packaged unit that keeps out disease
and keeps the embryo fresh.
Some seeds are preserved for long
periods of time while others perish in a
relatively short time. The endurance
record goes to the seed of the Arctic lup-
ine that was frozen in a glacier for over
10,000 years: when germinated, six of
the seeds started to grow within 48
hours. Perhaps the Arctic lupine should
be crowned the oldest living survivor on
earth, rather than the Sequoias or the
bristleconed pine. It's an interesting
thought.
Once a seed is formed its next duty is
to distribute itself, preferably away
from the parent plant. In the case of the
rose hip seeds, some are taken directly
from the plant when they become ripe
by birds and animals. Many pass
through birds without being digested
and are deposited elsewhere, some-
times hundreds of miles away. Some
merely fall to the ground and are moved
by the wind or sea to new locations.
The world of plants provides a never -
ending variety of beauty and form, not
to mention the life- giving process of pho-
tosynthesis. Without them the world
would be a much duller place. Stop by
your local roadside stand and pick up
your special bouquet today. There's no
better way to remind yourself of our re-
lationship to all living things on the pla-
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