Field Notes: A Plant Journey

~by Jim Eagleman

As a kid on our Pennsylvania sheep farm, I can’t recall any particular reference to a plant. The alfalfa hay fields we baled each summer, full and green with new hay, were a thing of pride for my dad, but I never thought of it as a food. To me, the crop we grew for sheep was foreign. I just remember the hard work involved. Grains for the horses and cornmeal for chickens just magically appeared. Even our big garden with luscious tomatoes and sweet corn didn’t register as things grown from soil, then fed to the family. The fields, forests, and pastures were just my green playground.

In high school biology class, we looked at plant stems and leaves under a microscope and I first heard the words xylem, and phloem. Slowly we were introduced to the plant world by an energetic teacher who brought in a different plant each day. We learned plant parts, flower types, roots, and how plants made food. A by-product of this process, the very air we breathed, was important. He held the plant close to his mouth and cupped in the air around it. The gas exchange between plants and humans was one of the most fundamental relationships in nature, he explained and made sure we understood.

A college class in general botany freshman year also made an impact on me. Botany, the biology of plants, made me think of the green world in much larger terms. Plants were the basis for all life, and if I was to become a biologist, I would have a lot to learn.

“Any good biologist is also a good botanist,” I heard a professor say. Our summer at the university field station was filled with natural resource topics, field courses, and lab work. I studied local flora, plant taxonomy, and bryology (the study of mosses), while I gave my wildlife classes a more serious focus. A minor in botany helped me better understand the plant world, but it was wild animals and how they lived that captured my attention and heart.

If we were to understand a wild animal, we had to learn about its diet. We studied when food ripens; when, where, and how it is eaten; how it is stored; and how it is digested. If something in the diet is scarce, what food gets substituted? How and where are young protected? Without doubt, the vegetative community played a major role. Nests, burrows and trails, runways, and loafing areas used by animals are found in forests, fields, and fence rows. The plants they need and habitats are close by. The diversity of animals is due to food availability. When food is limited, animals move.

When we hear of the current push to remove alien plants from the environment, there may be a mixed message. Aren’t all plants important? Why remove them if they provide food and homes?

Alien plants have been introduced throughout the world and are now found in places other than where they originated.

Competing with native vegetation, they are often the first to leaf out, robustly establish themselves in broken and disturbed soils, and produce flower pollen, and later fruit or seed. But pollinator insects and birds do not find them favorable. Much time has gone into a native plant and animal relationship where originals cannot be substituted. It isn’t sustainable or healthy for either one.

My first job with the Department of Natural Resources was at Turkey Run State Park. While there I learned about glacial history. The glacier, along with meltwater, deposited seeds and seedlings of northern plants like eastern hemlock trees. Their J-shaped growth teetered out and away from the impressive sandstone cliffs. They joined Canada yew and rare orchids not normally found there.

I thought my botany knowledge needed a recharge, so I enrolled at nearby DePauw University and received a Master’s degree. Field trips allowed me to experience these unique plant communities with my classmates. And my plant journey continued.

A faculty advisor reminded me a graduate thesis was due within two years of finishing and asked if I had considered any plant research. Working then at Brown County State Park and driving past those expansive vistas made me wonder how and why the park’s forest had been cleared. The young stand of hardwoods, mixed and still recovering, wasn’t near 100 years of growth, compared to Turkey Run’s virgin tracts of 650-700 years old. “There’s your thesis,” he said. He suggested researching where the Brown County timber went.

It’s hard to imagine the park’s 16,000 acres were cleared, but timber removal had already started by the early 1800s. Farmers used local timber crews and those traveling through southern Indiana to cut and drag trees into the bottoms. Log heaps were set ablaze and burned for weeks. Plowing was done in and around tree stumps, and sometimes not always following the contour. Erosion took its toll on the hilly, thin forest soils, and a destitute citizenry struggled for livelihood.

Brown County’s hilly terrain reminds me of my Pennsylvania start. There, sheep trails curved over pastured hills and into ravines where the trees grew. Plants of my childhood had local names like sticktights and fuzzy tongue, cow’s lip, and fairy wisp. Later I learned a more academic version of the family, genus, and species. But I still like the early names.

My plant journey has been lifelong, and it continues. I’ll always be a lover of plants.