CHAPTER ONE: Turning on the Light
continued from March 10, 2005
June 6, 1944 may not be the most important date in Bayeux history, but 1066. This was the year the Battle of Hastings took place. William, the Duke of Normandy, crossed the English Channel with his army, landed in England, and defeated Harold the Saxon king in the town of Hastings. This was the last time England was successfully invaded.
One of the most striking tapestries ever made is the famous 230-foot long Bayeux Tapestry, a terrific work of political and cultural propaganda that historians believe probably hung at one time from the nave of Bayeux Cathedral, but is now housed elsewhere.
This tapestry is an embroidered frieze, which illustrates in graphic detail the bloody battle, with dead soldiers, horses, and dismembered limbs everywhere. Of course, as the Normans were the ones who made the tapestry, they're portrayed as the "good guys." The Normans are clean-shaven and the Saxons look as though they haven't shaved nor had a hot meal in weeks. But as these Normans were the victors, they got to decide the "truth."
Bayeux Cathedral is neither as well known as Notre Dame nor as awe-inspiring as Chartres, but is nevertheless impressive. The cathedral was built originally in the squat, ponderous Romanesque style, emulating the traditional construction of Rome.
Inside the cathedral you feel you're in a place where perhaps new ideas will not be readily debated, but where conviction is clear and certain and, where I felt, the natural world was not far away. At night the tower was lit by floodlights, and standing by the front of the church, I sensed I was part of something very old and connected to an ancients world, far older than I could even begin to imagine at the time.
Plant society developed some 420 million years ago. To be precise, scientists have evidence of vascular plant fossils going that far back, meaning plants with tissues that can distribute water through their systems. This took place in land plants.
All this would have occurred near the end of what the geologists call the Silurian period. I suspect we humans would have had all the nature we could handle, had any of us been around during this time. It was probably pretty gloomy, all green, quiet, and mosses and ferns literally everywhere. No large animals crashed through the underbrush, but you might hear some insects buzzing, see some fish, and maybe catch a glimpse of a few turtles.
As most of us were taught in school, what caused this forest of green was a pigment called chlorophyll. The chlorophyll captured light energy from the sun, which is the fuel that got food manufacturing going--sugar, starch, and other carbohydrates. Simply put, without this process there would have been no fruits, no vegetables, no grains, no oxygen, no animals ... and no us.
For the next 290 million years or so things were relatively stable, predictable, and green in the plant community. It was a little less quiet with mammal numbers increasing, along with the size of some of them, but plants pretty much kept to themselves. But around 130 million years ago, at the end of the Jurassic period, the beginning of the Cretaceous period, something important took place. Flowers arrived in the plant community.
The flowering plant or angiosperm, as the botanists might refer to it, took over the plant world in a relatively short period of time. Today these flowering plants outnumber the ferns and cone bearing trees, which were around millions of years before any flower joined the community. The angiosperm number more than 200,000 species.
Angiosperm comes from the Greek word angeion and means "capsule" and "seed." All the flowering plants enclose their seeds in fruit. The fruit has hollow chambers (carpels) that protect the seeds. Think of mammals, where the young grow inside the mother.
Scientists today have come up with some basic classifications for the angiosperms: Magnoliids, which have, at least for the moment, 220 species and includes such plants as the avocado and black pepper; Monocots, which have about 65,000 species, and include all grasses like rice and wheat, certain flowers like orchids, and palm trees which are not made out of "true" wood; Eudicots have about 170,000 species. This group included plants like the oak and the blackberry, as well as many of the cone-bearing trees. Some paleobotanists think the earliest angiosperms might have been woody.
The flowering plant, unlike an animal, can't pick up and walk off to another location to set up a new community. They were stuck in one place, but had to insure that the species would spread to other areas and continue to expand and develop. This is where plant creativity demonstrated its ability.
Flowering plants going through the evolutionary "streets and alleys," finally got others to transport their genetic material to different locations. While these changes occurred over millions of years, the reproductive speed of many angiosperms probably made it easier for them to evolve faster than their competitors. Regardless, they came up with some remarkable ways of getting other species to help insure their survival.
Most flowers are hermaphroditic, meaning they have both male and female parts. It's more than likely that one of the principal reasons human agriculture developed in the Fertile Crescent first was the large percentage of edible hermaphroditic plants that were able to pollinate themselves, and thus make domestication of these plants--like wheat--easier for humans.
The fact of the matter is the plant doesn't leave much to chance: In addition to those plants that are hermaphroditic, there are plants that are both hermaphroditic but can sometimes cross-pollinate, and there are plants that have separate female and male parts that depend on another for pollination. Finally, there are plants, like the sweet potato, that reproduce without sex: The plant's root is able to make a carbon copy of the parent plant.
Pollen, the plant's genetic material, can be spread by the wind and end up on another compatible plant, but that's like keeping your fingers crossed and hoping for the best. The flowering plant kept evolving into "something" much more efficient, which would take us up to around 95 million years ago.
That something was the petal. This is what attracted the insects; depending on the particular insect, it might be lured by the petal's color, its shape, its smell, and or its taste. Botanists believe that 70 to 100 million years ago the number of flowering plants increased dramatically. The insect pollinators were attracted to these various petals, and the angiosperm's reproduction took off. In the process known as "coevolution," the insects got the nectar that tasted so good and the flower got pollen dispersal. The percentages were now in the plant's favor; the insect would deliver the pollen to a compatible flower.
Also not to be left out is the dinosaur. They munched on flowers that tasted good and delivered seed unwittingly to various locations through their digestive tract. Considering the size of some of the dinosaurs, they probably made some large deliveries. By the time the dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago, the mammals were ready to take their place and coevolution continued with new variations and new methods. The flowering plant was now well established, with a thriving and influential society of its own. In the next chapter we humans arrive on the scene and that's when things become truly interesting.
The seed plants have created to a large extent life on earth as we humans know it. Soils, forests, and food are three of the most obvious results. Our clothing (fibers) came from flowering plants, and many of our drugs still do ... recreational and otherwise. Weeds have yet to be discovered, but with our raucous arrival, we soon hear the mumblings about "those" weeds. Who are they? Where do they live? Who do they think they are? Why can't they do what's best for the community? After all, it's ... so obvious. Isn't it?
end of Chapter One
June 6, 1944 may not be the most important date in Bayeux history, but 1066. This was the year the Battle of Hastings took place. William, the Duke of Normandy, crossed the English Channel with his army, landed in England, and defeated Harold the Saxon king in the town of Hastings. This was the last time England was successfully invaded.
One of the most striking tapestries ever made is the famous 230-foot long Bayeux Tapestry, a terrific work of political and cultural propaganda that historians believe probably hung at one time from the nave of Bayeux Cathedral, but is now housed elsewhere.
This tapestry is an embroidered frieze, which illustrates in graphic detail the bloody battle, with dead soldiers, horses, and dismembered limbs everywhere. Of course, as the Normans were the ones who made the tapestry, they're portrayed as the "good guys." The Normans are clean-shaven and the Saxons look as though they haven't shaved nor had a hot meal in weeks. But as these Normans were the victors, they got to decide the "truth."
Bayeux Cathedral is neither as well known as Notre Dame nor as awe-inspiring as Chartres, but is nevertheless impressive. The cathedral was built originally in the squat, ponderous Romanesque style, emulating the traditional construction of Rome.
Inside the cathedral you feel you're in a place where perhaps new ideas will not be readily debated, but where conviction is clear and certain and, where I felt, the natural world was not far away. At night the tower was lit by floodlights, and standing by the front of the church, I sensed I was part of something very old and connected to an ancients world, far older than I could even begin to imagine at the time.
Plant society developed some 420 million years ago. To be precise, scientists have evidence of vascular plant fossils going that far back, meaning plants with tissues that can distribute water through their systems. This took place in land plants.
All this would have occurred near the end of what the geologists call the Silurian period. I suspect we humans would have had all the nature we could handle, had any of us been around during this time. It was probably pretty gloomy, all green, quiet, and mosses and ferns literally everywhere. No large animals crashed through the underbrush, but you might hear some insects buzzing, see some fish, and maybe catch a glimpse of a few turtles.
As most of us were taught in school, what caused this forest of green was a pigment called chlorophyll. The chlorophyll captured light energy from the sun, which is the fuel that got food manufacturing going--sugar, starch, and other carbohydrates. Simply put, without this process there would have been no fruits, no vegetables, no grains, no oxygen, no animals ... and no us.
For the next 290 million years or so things were relatively stable, predictable, and green in the plant community. It was a little less quiet with mammal numbers increasing, along with the size of some of them, but plants pretty much kept to themselves. But around 130 million years ago, at the end of the Jurassic period, the beginning of the Cretaceous period, something important took place. Flowers arrived in the plant community.
The flowering plant or angiosperm, as the botanists might refer to it, took over the plant world in a relatively short period of time. Today these flowering plants outnumber the ferns and cone bearing trees, which were around millions of years before any flower joined the community. The angiosperm number more than 200,000 species.
Angiosperm comes from the Greek word angeion and means "capsule" and "seed." All the flowering plants enclose their seeds in fruit. The fruit has hollow chambers (carpels) that protect the seeds. Think of mammals, where the young grow inside the mother.
Scientists today have come up with some basic classifications for the angiosperms: Magnoliids, which have, at least for the moment, 220 species and includes such plants as the avocado and black pepper; Monocots, which have about 65,000 species, and include all grasses like rice and wheat, certain flowers like orchids, and palm trees which are not made out of "true" wood; Eudicots have about 170,000 species. This group included plants like the oak and the blackberry, as well as many of the cone-bearing trees. Some paleobotanists think the earliest angiosperms might have been woody.
The flowering plant, unlike an animal, can't pick up and walk off to another location to set up a new community. They were stuck in one place, but had to insure that the species would spread to other areas and continue to expand and develop. This is where plant creativity demonstrated its ability.
Flowering plants going through the evolutionary "streets and alleys," finally got others to transport their genetic material to different locations. While these changes occurred over millions of years, the reproductive speed of many angiosperms probably made it easier for them to evolve faster than their competitors. Regardless, they came up with some remarkable ways of getting other species to help insure their survival.
Most flowers are hermaphroditic, meaning they have both male and female parts. It's more than likely that one of the principal reasons human agriculture developed in the Fertile Crescent first was the large percentage of edible hermaphroditic plants that were able to pollinate themselves, and thus make domestication of these plants--like wheat--easier for humans.
The fact of the matter is the plant doesn't leave much to chance: In addition to those plants that are hermaphroditic, there are plants that are both hermaphroditic but can sometimes cross-pollinate, and there are plants that have separate female and male parts that depend on another for pollination. Finally, there are plants, like the sweet potato, that reproduce without sex: The plant's root is able to make a carbon copy of the parent plant.
Pollen, the plant's genetic material, can be spread by the wind and end up on another compatible plant, but that's like keeping your fingers crossed and hoping for the best. The flowering plant kept evolving into "something" much more efficient, which would take us up to around 95 million years ago.
That something was the petal. This is what attracted the insects; depending on the particular insect, it might be lured by the petal's color, its shape, its smell, and or its taste. Botanists believe that 70 to 100 million years ago the number of flowering plants increased dramatically. The insect pollinators were attracted to these various petals, and the angiosperm's reproduction took off. In the process known as "coevolution," the insects got the nectar that tasted so good and the flower got pollen dispersal. The percentages were now in the plant's favor; the insect would deliver the pollen to a compatible flower.
Also not to be left out is the dinosaur. They munched on flowers that tasted good and delivered seed unwittingly to various locations through their digestive tract. Considering the size of some of the dinosaurs, they probably made some large deliveries. By the time the dinosaurs died out about 65 million years ago, the mammals were ready to take their place and coevolution continued with new variations and new methods. The flowering plant was now well established, with a thriving and influential society of its own. In the next chapter we humans arrive on the scene and that's when things become truly interesting.
The seed plants have created to a large extent life on earth as we humans know it. Soils, forests, and food are three of the most obvious results. Our clothing (fibers) came from flowering plants, and many of our drugs still do ... recreational and otherwise. Weeds have yet to be discovered, but with our raucous arrival, we soon hear the mumblings about "those" weeds. Who are they? Where do they live? Who do they think they are? Why can't they do what's best for the community? After all, it's ... so obvious. Isn't it?
end of Chapter One
posted by mumpsimus | 6:06 AM
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