You appreciate things you know about. The late Bob Bender, Curator of the Lowcountry Estuarium, used to say, “If people know about the Estuary they will take care of it. So, if there are any kids out there – or anybody else – here are a few things to know about our native plants.
1. North American and southeastern native plants were here before European exploration and settlement.
2. They provide food for many species that eat plants: leaves, berries, seeds, stems, tubers, roots, etc.
3. They make Oxygen, and it is a byproduct of making their own food. The really cool exchange of gases like Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Carbon dioxide combined with water in the presence of sunlight takes place in the leaves of green plants. It is called photosynthesis. The leaves manufacture sucrose which is a simple sugar. People and other animals cannot do this and need to eat plant parts or other animals. See #2.
4. They are beautiful. More about this later.
5. Plants are cool. Trees in our yards, cities, and parks make shade.
6. Their branches, leaves, and twigs give shelter to nesting birds, squirrels, and lizards,especially anoles which live in trees and on our porches.
7. They are fun to climb. As kids we loved to climb trees. One neighbor planted a tulip poplar in their yard. It is probably the fastest growing tree on this side of the Mississippi River, and it was a favorite hangout for me and my fellow tree climbers. I remember going to the top and swaying back and forth. We got into big trouble climbing a Catalpa also know as Indian cigar tree. (We smoked them and rabbit tobacco until we moved on to the already rolled cigarettes.) One of the branches snapped and my friend’s little brother fell and broke his collar bone. Big trouble, and that probably should have been a sign that smoking is hazardous to one’s health!
8. Native plants can grow without extra fertilizer, irrigation, or chemical pesticides. Remember, they grew just fine before those things were even invented. Their roots help to hold soil. This helps to keep our streams, creeks, rivers, and our beautiful marsh clean, so that the fish, crabs, shrimp, and oysters have a good place to raise their young. We have clean water to swim and fish.
I know that is a lot of information on native plants, but I do want to brag about how beautiful nature is. She puts an awful lot of effort into decorating our world. The marsh grass goes from spring chartreuse green to dark summer green to fall yellow/tan, and finally to winter brown in a year. In the fall clusters of white flowers adorn the tops of the marsh grass, because grasses are flowering plants. Wildflowers of every color bloom in the meadows and roadsides advertising pollen, nectar, and maybe some leaves to their customers: butterflies, bees, and birds. Leaves are not only colorful, but they come in many sizes and shapes. You may see ones shaped like hearts, arrowheads, round, fat, skinny, with smooth or jagged edges.
If any of this information is interesting, I hope that you’ll take a friend or an adult on a nature walk to discover and appreciate the importance of native plants.
