In the days of the old prairie, its perennial members reveled in dormancy and cast their seeds with a starry eye and a mind full of hope toward the next vernal season.
Returning each growing season only from seed, those with a monocarpic life cycle, such as the obligate annuals, have no rooted memory of their hard work; only genetic memory contained in the germ left behind. The perennials however, are deeply rooted with a semi-permanence of interred vegetative memory and are much longer lived; some individual clonal species may be several decades or even centuries old. Some perennials may flower many times and produce an abundance of seed throughout their life. Others may flower and set seed just once, even after living for many decades. Continue reading “The Old Stuff”
The Roaming Ecologist 