Tuesday, April 9h

“I tell you I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different”

Reading things by Kurt Vonnegut is pleasurable, provides a refreshing perspective, and makes one’s life more meaningful. Just like Riverview. [Yup, that phenomenal transition right there was completely original.]

Did you know that there’s a bunch of goofy little plants at Riverview (and doubtless elsewhere) that just keep growing taller and taller instead of wider and leafier. Honestly, back in the good ole days plants didn’t do none o’ this type o’ shenanigan, no sir, they just grew up prim and proper like teapots and salad forks. By golly.

Why do they do that? First, perhaps, we should talk about light and plants. Plants like light, they need it to grow. In the wild, light is a limited resource and plants must compete for it. If you’ve ever left a potted plant in the same spot by the window for a few months, you’ll have noticed that when you look at it again, it seems lopsided. The parts of the plant that have grown most are those with the best access to sunlight. The tendency of plants to grow towards light is called phototropism.

Growth of plants is controlled (like so many other things in life) by hormones. Specifically, the hormone auxin. Where there is auxin there shall also be growth. The concentration of auxin within a plant allows plants to exhibit, in addition to phototropism, the also convenient and beneficial hydrotropism and geotropism. 

Hydrotropism is when a plant grows towards a higher concentration of humidity or moisture, and geotropism is when plants grow in either the same direction of gravity (roots) or the opposite (stems.) They might not be recognized by spell check, but I assure you they are words. 

Let’s pretend for a second that seeds are sentient***. So a seed is in the ground, it senses moisture so it decides to germinate. It senses gravity and orients itself sending its roots down and its stem up. And it’s thinking about budding out into a leaf or two, but it can’t sense any light. Perhaps, thinks the seed, there is a larger plant blocking it and it needs to be taller before it can spread out a leaf that will get some sun. And then it enters this loop and keeps growing up at a rapid pace.

But, jokes on you plant, there wasn’t anything in your way, I just left you in the dark too long. And now you’re awkwardly tall and if you make some leaves you’ll just tip over and die, and you can't really just keep growing, and you can't shrink and then grow leaves. You're as hopeless as a lactose intolerant earthworm searching for nourishment in the South Pole.

Hopefully the daily occurrence of nighttime won’t be long enough  for this process to happen.  Hopefully, though evolution, plants have come up with a way to avoid that. Or maybe it was cloudy, or they were in the shade too much, but for whatever reason, we have got some leggy plants. 

Solutions? We'll just have to be extra careful that the finicky varieties get bright light while germinating. For the ones already too leggy, we can try replanting them deeper, covering up part of their stem. Or we could let them die. 

***I mean no disrespect to Jainists when I imply that plants are not sentient.