Learning nature by its seeds

by Christos Economou

There's a scene in Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai that has captivated me for years.    As a bit of background for those that haven't seen it (it's a great movie, watch it!), the story is about a group of downtrodden farmers hiring samurai to defend their village from grain-stealing bandits.  But they don't know what they're in for, and a lot of time passes with no success.  We finally see a farmer in the scene I'm thinking of worriedly rush to a patch of grass growing in the foreground.  "It has ripened!" he exclaims, to which one of his companions responds, "Well, it's been ten days already!" and another asserts dismissively: "This is an early kind, not like ours!"                

Botanizing in Tokugawa Japan…

There's a lot to unpack from these 30 seconds.  But what strikes me is the way in which these farmers experience the world.  Their rhythms are cyclical, human.  No clocks or calendars; these destitute, illiterate peasants know the time of year by when the barley is ripe.  Their knowledge of plants is so deep that they discern (or at least can pretend to discern) varieties that ripen within weeks of each other. 

Even at risk of romanticizing a bit, I contrast this with my own experience.  Many years of schooling have left me ill-informed about when corn is ready for harvest, or when the rough blazing star is about to bloom.  Slight differences in morphology confuse me when trying to identify the few plants I've learned.  All of which distresses me, because I've always felt there was something eminently worthwhile in that sort of deep familiarity with the processes of the natural world. 

Recently, on a beautiful, sunny, warbler-filled morning at Harms Woods, I saw with hope that this familiarity is very much alive today, and that there are people happy to teach it to anyone willing to learn.  Hunting garlic mustard there with some of the North Branch's bipedal treasures, Jane and John Balaban and Eriko Kojima, I saw something that took me back to that scene with Kurosawa's farmers.  And there where yours truly was placidly enjoying the sunlight filtering through the leaves above, the rest of the party was focused on what was underfoot.  Suddenly, they stopped.  Eriko knelt, and gingerly rolled the inconspicuous seed-head of a miniscule plant between her fingertips.  "Hepatica's not quite ready yet," she informed us coolly.

Hepatica acutiloba in flower.  Photo credit to Eriko.  Unlikely I could catch something so small…

"The what?  How did you see that!?  How do you know?"  I thought to myself.  And then: "How long until I'm able to tell when the hepatica is ready?"

I just can't wait until I am.  The joy of seeds, and all that those little specks of life signify for the future, is simply thrilling.  But beyond that, the degree of care – I hope she wouldn't mind me calling it love – for living things that I saw Eriko embody in that moment cut deep.  She's put her all into understanding and cultivating the wondrous nature that was here long before we were, and that, through her and all the North Branchers' efforts, will be here long after we are gone. 

 

The rare golden sedge (Carex aurea) and blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium albidum), encountered recently at Watersmeet Preserve.  "Not quite ready yet," as Eriko might say.

We need this nature, both in practical ways that we are only just beginning to comprehend, and for more important, if less tangible reasons.  But if nature is to thrive into the future, it needs our help just as we need it.  One imagines the farmers feel this reciprocity, even if only in a shallow, transactional way.  Eriko most certainly does, in a broader and more inspiring way.  I want to be like her.

She later told me, "Just cutting the bad stuff down doesn’t heal the ecosystem.  It's a part.  But monitoring, collecting, spreading seeds, that's when restoration starts.  That's what got me in deep, hooked."  Yes. If we are to uphold our side of the bargain with nature, we need to be intimately with it.  Learning where the plants are, what they do, what they look like, and when their seeds are ready to pick are all part of the process.  To grow with nature, we need to get out and collect seeds as often as we can.

From a recent, COVID-conscious seed collection workday at Watersmeet.

We humans may be at a weird point in our history, but nature is still plodding along its familiar course.  Summer is here, and with it the first fruits of spring.  All along the North Branch, there are ripening seeds waiting to start life somewhere new, and calling out to us to help them achieve it.  Many of us are learning how to help them do it.  I hope you will too.

Many thanks to Eriko and Stephen for their editing, the Balabans for their generosity with time, and all the other teachers on the North Branch.