February 2012 Update
Words and Woods
On a cloudy October day in the deepening of fall, Biology Lecturer Steve Baskauf led a tour of the Vanderbilt Arboretum. Several students and faculty were in attendance. Baskauf’s tour focused on trees that fruit in the fall, from the September Elm to the Osage Orange. Along the walk, we visited the Bicentennial Red Oak and the nearby Black Oak, and we talked about seed dispersal mechanisms, from wind-borne technologies like helicopter wings to animal assistance from squirrels and jays, as well as more prehistoric possibilities, such as the now-extinct gomphothere. We concluded the tour at the Persimmon tree, where we sampled fruit that Steve had collected and cleaned the day before. Participants on the tour took notes and drew pictures on “leaves” of paper, which we collected in a pile at the end and exchanged as mementos.
Keep an eye out for another Words and Woods tour this spring.
Excerpts from the “leaf pile”:
Little acorn—
Sprout fast
Before you get eaten!
R-Strategist
Sugar Maple—
Lots of seeds;
Leave it to the wind.
Trying to outsmart the squirrels,
Red oaks wear berets;
Burr oaks wear wooly caps.
Weird Fruits & Seeds
They are
sometimes
the same
& in part
also dead,
the afterthought
of flowers
the grandchildren
of trees
mooching off
the family fortune
exactly according to plan.