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I'd love to share some thoughts on our friends the trees if I may. I posted this first in the *Beautiful World* tribe but I'd like to try taking it a bit further here.
Trees have fascinated me for as long as I remember.
I used to climb them all the time as a child and always wondered why I did as I was trying to get my feet safely back on to mother earth. Being born in the year of the monkey may have had something to do with it, but there's a little more to my love for them.
Trees are just amazing in every way; they provide shelter and are homes to many; they give us oxygen; they feed us, they keep mountains together; they are real giants; they are wise; they are teachers; they are spirits, they are the ancestors of all animal life... and we often disregard them because they don't speak (our language) and cut them down so arrogantly. To think that there are trees on this earth that are over 3000 years old... trees that have witnessed all of man's modern history! Makes you think for a minute, doesn't it? Have you ever touched such a tree? I have.
There's this tall tree (sorry, can't recall it's name) in Africa which only the giraffe can reach. When a giraffe starts to eat it's leaves, the tree initiates a transformation in which it becomes poisonous while changing the color of it's leaves from green to red, all within the span of one half hour. The giraffe knows, as does any animal not to eat the red leaves; a fair warning from the tree. Amazing, why not stay poisonous all the time then? Furthermore, during this transformation the tree somehow sends out a warning signal, initiating all other members of it's species within a vast area to transform simultaneously! Trees are magical, aren't they?
loving sigh...
Has anyone else ever heard of such a tree?
Any additional info on this out there???
Trees have fascinated me for as long as I remember.
I used to climb them all the time as a child and always wondered why I did as I was trying to get my feet safely back on to mother earth. Being born in the year of the monkey may have had something to do with it, but there's a little more to my love for them.
Trees are just amazing in every way; they provide shelter and are homes to many; they give us oxygen; they feed us, they keep mountains together; they are real giants; they are wise; they are teachers; they are spirits, they are the ancestors of all animal life... and we often disregard them because they don't speak (our language) and cut them down so arrogantly. To think that there are trees on this earth that are over 3000 years old... trees that have witnessed all of man's modern history! Makes you think for a minute, doesn't it? Have you ever touched such a tree? I have.
There's this tall tree (sorry, can't recall it's name) in Africa which only the giraffe can reach. When a giraffe starts to eat it's leaves, the tree initiates a transformation in which it becomes poisonous while changing the color of it's leaves from green to red, all within the span of one half hour. The giraffe knows, as does any animal not to eat the red leaves; a fair warning from the tree. Amazing, why not stay poisonous all the time then? Furthermore, during this transformation the tree somehow sends out a warning signal, initiating all other members of it's species within a vast area to transform simultaneously! Trees are magical, aren't they?
loving sigh...
Has anyone else ever heard of such a tree?
Any additional info on this out there???
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trees
Wed, February 11, 2004 - 6:46 AMYou´re sure about that.. Trees are special.. but people often dont remember that... Specially thoose u live in the citys!!
"they are teachers; they are spirits, they are the ancestors of all animal life" ... shamans spirits
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Positive vibrations
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Unsu...
Re: trees
Fri, October 29, 2004 - 3:56 PMim new to the group and just wanted to say hi to all
thats a good question--why not stay poisonous? whenever ive tripped ive had this connection with nature as im sure most do and ive always felt this spirit inside of trees, just because something is stationary can it not still think or have emotion and senses, people have come to believe if your not a person or you have no brain then how could you possibly have any intelligence? why is this so that we think this way, i have come to believe that plants are smarter than people and holds secrets to the universe if your willing to listen, i think it was mckenna who said maybe plants gave up their ability to move so they could photosynthesize and make their own food, they could have been moving beings which evolved into such higher intelligence they make their own beauty--my thought on why the tree doesnt stay that way is because it doesnt want to look evil but beautiful and only wants to protect itself, maybe it doesnt want people to say hey thats a poisonous tree,.
ive been using salvia for a while now, and what amazes me is that alot of people report seeing the same female entity, the sheperdhess, and then some other plants have their own particular entity so that all plants in essence is a being that can only be seen when using the particular plant--maybe they want to contact us and some of us have been fortunatew to see and learn many thingsfrom these plants, i know for me i feel so fortunate and so open minded than those that sneer at the thought of using a plant, to me i feel its the only way-plants were here before us they have a lot to tell us , they are just waiting for the students that realize there imortance,
something else to ponder-- mckenna said he believed plants made the animals so that they could transport the seeds around, ive always thought that was a kool, anyways sorry to ramble peace-
psychedelicsmoke -
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Re: trees -- speciecism
Fri, October 29, 2004 - 11:42 PMNo need to apologise for your obviously abundant insights my friend!
Lots can be said about the plant-animal symbiosis. Important to realise is that we exist because of plants. They made it possible. I completely agree with everything you've stated. By the way, you're one of the only people I've ever come accross who's been willing to state that plants are "more" intelligent than us; people. Our institutionalised sense of superiority has brought about a self limiting dynamic which segregates many of us from nature and consequently recognising the bigger interconnected picture. We (still) live in an age of self perpetuated and self defeating mind control; an undeniable challenge to our collective "intelligence"... Given all factors at play, evolutionary theorists cannot possibly deny that plant life extends far beyond the limitations of animal life on this plane.
to be continued...
Welcome by the way.
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Acacias and Giraffes
Mon, November 1, 2004 - 12:10 AMcgee.hamline.edu/see/crs_a..._10-11.htm
Coevolution on the African Savannah
Like all communities, the African savannah communities provide many examples of interliving. The famous acacia tree gives us two wonderful examples.
acacia thorns
nectaries
The African acacias have large thorns to deter grazing. Grazers on the lower branches get a double surprise. If they bite a leaf, ants pour out of the hollowed-out thorns and attack them. Thorns are a safe place to live. The interliving ants get to eat sugary acacia sap from special breast-like organs called nectaries, and they keep grazers away.
The giraffe/acacia interliving relationship may seem exotic. Giraffes are grazers on higher tree leaves. That"s their niche. If on an open savannah acacias are the most common tree, the giraffe must eat acacia leaves. Together they have evolved a system for coexistence. If a giraffe begins to browse acacia leaves, the tree immediately begins pumping alkaloids into all its leaves which make its leaves not only nasty-tasting but poisonous to the giraffe. So the giraffe only gets to eat a few acacia leaves from that tree.
Here is where the story gets interesting.
When the acacia begins its chemical defense, it releases a signal into the air, and all of the acacia trees downwind of the "injured" tree immediately begin to pump their own leaves full of poison too. You get a picture of a lot of hungry giraffes.
Giraffes, however, have found a way to successfully browse acacias. They begin upwind and graze against the wind. They can still only get a few leaves from each tree before the leaves be- come too bitter, but as long as they work with the wind, they do get a meal.
This relationship is clearly not symbiosis in the traditional sense, but just as clearly it is coevolved interliving. Although it is based in self-interest (as most everything is), the cooperation here is real. Both members of this collaboration get what they need. I said above that this giraffe/acacia interliving may seem exotic. It is not; their pattern turns out to be a common pattern. It"s quite ordinary, we are beginning to discover, for plants to be responsive to animals (especially insects) in many ways. What tangled webs we weave. Interliving arrangements may always involve energy transfer (feeding).
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Re: Acacias and Giraffes -- co-evolution
Wed, November 3, 2004 - 4:56 PMExcellent reference on "Interliving" John!
"A few decades ago, as biologists began to understand genetic inheritance by studying cell DNA, they discovered that inside each of our billions of body cells are tiny power plants called mitochondria, which we require to stay alive. The strange thing they found was that mitochondria are not related to us. The discovery that their DNA was not quite human DNA was the first big clue to solving the puzzle of how eucaryotic cells came to exist."
"Somehow the large cell and the invader cell worked out a way of living together. The invader was mitochondria, which is a small specialist in converting energy.. It provided usable energy to the large cell it had invaded. The large cell in turn provided food and safety to the invader. They developed the kind of intimate interdependency and cooperation we call symbiosis.
Today every cell in every animal of Earth (including your cells) is this symbiotic type of cell. The mitochondria in these cells provide efficient energy production through chemical processes, so we animals can metabolize our food.
Something similar must have happened with plants. But in today's plant cells we have not just two, but three kinds of cells interliving.
Based on DNA studies, microbiologists postulate a sequence of symbioses, one for the mitochondria, and two for distinct types of chloroplasts. The third partner in every green plant cell is the chloroplast, which converts light energy into chemical energy (photosynthesis). All animal cells depend for their lives on this transforming ability of green plant cells."
cgee.hamline.edu/see/crs_a..._10-11.htm
"All animal cells depend for their lives on this transforming ability of green plant cells"...
This is exactly what I meant with my earlier post in which I stated that plants are making it possible for us to exist. This is completely by design.
Thank you also for clarifying the giraffe story. Mine had a few holes in it as it was passed on by word of mouth, and we all know how that goes ;-)
Correction: perhaps the author was intending to say that the giraffe begins "downwind" instead of "upwind"? To me, that would make slightly more sense, unless the giraffe begins grazing upwind and proceeds upwind...
And here's another good one from your link:
WASHINGTON, DC. (Associated Press)
"When caterpillars munch on corn leaves, the plant sends out a chemical alarm. Like airborne cavalry, tiny wasps fly to the rescue and turn the bad guys into lunch."
"This is essentially an alliance between the wasp and the plants against herbivorous insects," said J.H.. Tumlinson of the Agricul tural- Research Service in Gainesville, Fla."
"We are not used to thinking of plants as responsive. It takes discoveries like this to force us to take our blinders off.
Caution We should remember that the wasp-plant alliance described in the story is the result of a long co-evolution between insect and plant, and does not mean that plants or insects think and plan in the way that we do."
peeec,
d.
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