life finds a way

“It’s not possible. That is the one thing that the history of evolution has taught us, that life will not be contained, it breaks free, it expands into new territories, it crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but...Well, there it is...Life, uh....finds a way, “ said Professor Ian Malcolm in the 1993 movie Jurassic Park.

Nature indeed finds a way. A way to recover, to move on, even after a wildfire that wipes everything out as we saw three days ago on sandy, shaley Piney Ridge in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. 

But, how? Table Mountain pines have serotinous pine cones. They are time capsules waiting for their time, whenever it comes. 

se·rot·i·nous [si-ROT-n-uh-s]

“Serotiny is an ecological adaptation exhibited by some seed plants, in which seed release occurs in response to an environmental trigger, rather than spontaneously at seed maturation.”

In the case of these pines, the trigger is fire. It takes high heat to melt the resin that holds the seeds in place and even if that fire only comes along once in the lifespan of a human, say, my lifespan. Nature finds a way to move on and generate new life. No matter what bad things we do to the planet...life will indeed find a way. Even if it has to leave us behind. 

  

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