Roger J. Wendell
Defending 3.8 Billion Years of Organic EvolutionSM
Plants
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I've always loved plants and growing things. I started
small gardens and miniture "nature centers" during my
pre-teens and have carried that love with me through my
50s when I decided to create this page. My guess, too,
is that a few more gardens and plants around the world
would help slow down Global Warming but that's another
story...
- Roger J. Wendell |
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Click Here for my YouTube video of pollen being blown off an Austrian Pine... |
- Iris Murdoch
(Click on any this page's "thumbnail" images for a larger view)
Grand Canyon flowers:
These are from my April, 2006 backpacking trip with Doug and his son Bobby.
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In January, 2006 I took a trip through Ecuador
to do a little climbing and hiking around...
 Rapid Plant Movement |
Rapid Plant Movement This strange little plant folds up anywhere along the leaf where you touch it!! After a few minutes it unfurls itself and returns to normal. In this particular photo I tried to capture just half of the leaf structure folding up. Either way, it didn't appear that the plant was preparing to "eat" anything (in a way similar to our own Venus Flytrap) - its reaction to touch seems to be some defensive mechanism. I believe this species may be related to Mimosa pudica ("Sensitive Plant") but am not sure... |
Texas:
In early May, 2006 I took a business trip to Bandera, Texas that included some spare time around the San Antonio airport area and the Alamo. Texas is much warmer than my home state of Colorado so I was fascinated at the variety of green and flowering plants at a time when there was still snow on the ground in my backyard at home!
 Bandera |
 Bandera |
 Mayan Ranch at Bandera |
 Bandera |
 Bandera |
 In the town of Bandera... |
 The Alamo |
 The Alamo |
 The Alamo |
 The Alamo |
Gardens
"...it has proven worthwhile for communities to make a public commitment to providing land, horticultural training, soil and compost, and other means of support to enable people who want to garden to do so. Whether people are motivated by the myth of self-reliance, the fear of a cataclysmic event, or simply the wish to make something ugly into something beautiful, society should permit them to stand in humble repose on their own tiny plots of land and to make what magic they can of it. Doing so affords them the opportunity to come together in community to grow plants and to experience for themselves the pulse of the seasons marked by the productions of the earth"
- Mark Winne
Closing the Food Gap (Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty), p. 45
Seeds
Seeds have always fascinated me as well. Sometimes I see them twirling to the ground like small helicopters off a Maple tree while at other times I see them slowly drifting through the breeze like little ephemeral puffs off cotton off a dandelion, milkweed, or cottonwood tree. However, I think July, 2010 was the first time I ever had a seed burrow into my skin! I don't know what plants these seeds are from (photo at left) but they easily went through my socks while hiking near Red Rock Amphitheatre west of Denver. After removing my socks I actually had one that had burrowed into my skin. And, just like a fish hook, refused to reverse its course? Despite the small amount of paint I remained fascinated by the hardened, barbed tip head of this particular seed. And, when a little moisture hit its "tail" the whole thing start to twist and bend - a "burrowing" action to help find its way into the ground I'm sure!
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Click Here for my notes on Composting (on my Recycling page)... |
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Links: |
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 Drawn by me at about age 9 |
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