This is a photo of pure potential and a crazy dream. 12 tree saplings in their youngest and most vulnerable state: 3 eastern redbuds, 2 sargent crabapples, 2 washington hawthorns, 3 white flowering dogwoods, and 2 crapemyrtles. They all begin as a single twig with wispy roots.
The next time you’re looking at a fully grown tree, consider all the energy, effort, and time they took to transform themselves. If you’re thinking of doing something new or growing in a new direction, think of a tree. If they can grow from a fragile shoot into a towering figure who provides shade, clean air, food, and a home for so many species, who stands tall in the face of difficulty, then you can grow into who you want to be.
Over the next few months, I’ll be looking after these little ones in the hopes of giving them to my Brooklyn neighbors to plant in their yards when they’re a bit bigger and stronger. I’m sure there will be many lessons in this botanical endeavor. For now, these are the words they’re speaking to me: surround yourself with love and nourishment, and see how you flourish.
Eastern Redbud. Brooklyn, NY. Photo by Christa Avampato.
My Brooklyn neighborhood is in full bloom with flowering trees putting on a colorful show for all of us. One of the trees that always catches my eyes this time of year is the Eastern Redbud. They grow bright pink, purple, and red buds directly from their trunks. Known as cauliflory and found mostly in the tropics in species such as cacao, jackfruit, and papaya, the evolutionary purpose of this adaptation has a few hypotheses.
1.) Foster as many partnerships as possible With the ability to grow flowers on the trunk, the Eastern Redbud can produce more flowers, allowing for more seed dispersal and pollination opportunities. Additionally, more animals can act as pollinators. For example, small mammals climbing onto the tree trunks wouldn’t normally play a role in pollination when the flowers are on delicate branches that cannot support the weight of these mammals. However, with flowers growing on the main trunk that can support them, they act as pollinators for the redbuds just as much as birds and small insects.
For us, emulating a redbud means considering all of the potential partnerships we have around us. How can we change what we’re doing to help them help us? Even if someone doesn’t normally play a certain role, could they fill that role if we altered the system in a way that allows them to participate?
Eastern Redbud. Brooklyn, NY. Photo by Christa Avampato.
2.) Energy and resource savings Without the need to grow a network on many delicate branches, flowering directly on the trunk saves the tree energy, water, and food. These resources can be poured into creating more flowers and therefore greater pollination and seed dispersal. The redbud certainly takes advantage of this, and in full bloom appears to explode with flowers.
There is nothing worse in nature than waste. Wasted energy can and often does mean the difference between life and death. Are we using all the resources we have in the most optimal way? Can we change how we operate to make better use of the resources we have to meet our ends goals?
3.) A matter of physics In the case of trees such as cacao, jackfruit, and papaya, the fruit is too heavy for small delicate branches to bear. The weight of the fruit requires a sturdier structure so they grow directly from the trunk. This also allows the fruit to grow to a larger side, and again, allows for greater seed dispersal.
Sometimes we’re forced to do things a certain way for the sake of practicality and to best meet our end goal. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but practicality is the agent of adaptation, moving us along to do exactly what needs to be done.
Eastern Redbud. Brooklyn, NY. Photo by Christa Avampato.
I’m so excited to share that I reached one of my big writing goals for 2019: I wrote and published two pieces about biomimicry for a science publication. I’m so grateful to The Biomimicry Institute for reaching out to me and asking me to write for them. My two pieces about biomimicry’s pivotal role in the Green New Deal (a set of policies to protect the health of our planet) and the Blue New Deal (a subset of Green New Deal policies that focuses on the health of our oceans) are now live. You can read them at the links below. I’d love to know what you think!
I’m studying sustainable coastal resilience strategies in the face of climate change and rising sea levels. Seawalls don’t provide sufficient protection, harm wildlife, pollute waterways, and are difficult and expensive to maintain. Artificial walls don’t work in nature. What works is building longer buffet tables and larger homes that make accommodations for all stakeholders—coral reefs, mangroves, oyster beds, and salt marshes. This idea is much more than a metaphor or allegory. Seawalls are a cautionary tale of what happens when we exclude beings who have all the same rights that we do to survive and thrive. Sustainable solutions have successfully played out over the course of 3.8 billion years of natural history’s R&D lab. We would be wise to follow its example.
Christa Avampato 