Hunter-Gatherers and Our Gossip

By Emma Leavens

We work, and we interact. As we harvest rare seeds for restoration, there is often a casual exchange of stories about plants, that is also part of our restoration work. 

There are descriptive stories about peculiar pollination, the why and how of seed structures, and what those seeds require in order to start new life. There’s no shortage of fascinating backstories, evolutionarily speaking. Some of my favorite stories, though, are the ones that make characters of the plants. They help me get to know how species behave as members of a community.

 

Their "parachutes" loft these savanna blazing star (Threatened species) seeds far and wide.
But will they land on top of a building or in a parking lot?
We toss some of them in good habitats on days of light wind. It seems to help. 

Around Somme, in the short time I have been helping collect and disperse seed, I have already heard a good deal:

·      This stubborn species showed up in several places this year! 

·      How did this one get over here? 

·      Look at what established itself there, of all places! What is it telling us that we don’t yet know how to listen to? 

·      Oh, and this plant produces a ton of seeds but just try to find them!

·      This species seems to only reproduce under particular conditions. 

·      We have no idea how this plant got here - we’re just glad it sticks around. 

·      I’ve noticed this other species seems to prefer this micro-habitat over that one. Have you noticed that too?

If you have some practice with science, you might recognize these little stories as anecdotal evidence. If you’ve spent time among friends, you’ll likely recognize that this is also a type of gossip. Ecology gossip. Plant gossip. The very best kind. And like lesser gossip, you may get a slightly different sense of things depending where you go and who you ask. You get hints at what is going on that you won’t find in ecology textbooks. 

Seeds and seed-gatherers come in great variety.

Accomplishments, surprises, and satisfaction - as we recover the sources of our roots.

Hopefully, in time, these happenings will be researched with rigor. The anecdotes will get confirmed or clarified, and added to the books. In the meantime, they are still valuable for the emerging practice of ecological restoration. They give clues as to how we can support those species, what factors we maybe overlooked or got right when we distributed seeds in previous years, and what we might do next to help those species recover healthy populations in their communities.

A sign of the times: hunter-gatherers with Covid masks.
Will we decide at some point that in the open air, this far apart, we don't need them? 

Last year, the Somme crew collected seeds of more than 300 species of plants. Then we redistributed them in our prairies, savannas, woodlands, and wetlands. Each of those species has some fascinating behavior worth talking about plus plenty to tell us about the community. The more people who help to observe, collect, and repeat, the more stories we get to learn and share in order to ensure that those species endure. 

If you’re interested in helping out, please email us at sommepreserve@gmail.com or sign up at sommepreserve.org. We currently have opportunities to collect seed and share stories at least twice a week. 

Photos by Lisa Musgrave