Big Seeds

By Dan Collins

I took short walk today and was renewed to see the tiny cotyledon leaves of the false mermaid (Floerkea proserpinacoides) on the wet forest floor. A tiny wispy little plant that has a very small flower, but as a colony will create an early dramatic bright green expanse on the floor of a beech maple woods. The green expanse will only persist for a few  weeks, but in that time each plant will produce the most enormous seeds (1/10”) for a plant of its size. False Mermaid will only make a few seeds per plant, but in each seed is the very biggest investment that the plant can possibly make. Unlike others, such as the Cottonwood which makes as many seeds as it can, the annual False Mermaid tries to give each of its few seeds the best possible start and so germination rates are quite high. 

It reminds me of our work at the Land Restoration School. We are not trying to be a school for 50 or 100 students, we hope for 6 to 12 restorationists each year. Along with our visiting faculty and staff we are all becoming big seeds. We all make a big investment in ourselves, in each other, in learning deeply about ecological restoration, so that at the end of our season when we depart in August we are big substantial seeds. We might be full of new awareness, new skills or knowledge, ability and capacity. And we are ready to plant ourselves somewhere special where we will make a difference in helping to heal degraded habitats and landscapes of potential. Big seeds, that is our hope.

Flowering Floerkea

Big seeds of Floerkea