Marcescent

Earlier today we read one of the vignettes in the Autumn section of Emily Stone's natural connections: exploring northwoods nature through science and your senses. As we started the final paragraph, we encountered a word that, several years ago, would have sent us scurrying for a dictionary. Today, we knew what the word meant. The word is marcescent.

..."marcescence, the trait of retaining plant parts after they are dead and dry. Marcescence most often refers to persistent leaves but can also refer to other parts such as flower corollas."

red squirrel and marcescent oak leaves in Winter

Photo by J. Harrington

About five years ago we participated in The Loft's first Nature and Environmental Writing conference at the Audubon Center of the North Woods. Prior to the conference, we'd noticed that, unlike the orderly maples that drop their leaves in a brief period, the oak trees on our property shed leaves almost as year round as our dog SiSi sheds her hair. Then we noticed that some branches, on some of the trees, retained their leaves until the Spring, when the leaf bud newly swelling pushed the old leaf stem out the door. We wondered why.

is there a word for this deformed tree trunk we found at North Woods Center?

Photo by J. Harrington

What evolutionary advantage might the oaks get that other deciduous trees lacked? According to those we asked at the North Woods Center that weekend, and about everyone else since then, no one knows why. There are theories and speculation, but no answers. (Our preferred theory is they help red squirrels to hide in the trees.) During the research effort, we did come across the word marcescent and learned its meaning. Perhaps, more amazing, we remembered and felt almost smug today when we became reacquainted. Plus, today, from no less a source than the Harvard Arboretum [see quote above] we've added to our knowledge because until now, we thought only leaves were marcescent. Now we know that other parts such a flower corollas can share that trait. In fact, we wonder if the word applies to the seed heads on prairie plants such as round-headed bush clover.

A Boundless Moment

by Robert Frost

He halted in the wind, and -- what was that

Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?

He stood there bringing March against his thought,

And yet too ready to believe the most.

"Oh, that's the Paradise-in-bloom," I said;

And truly it was fair enough for flowers

had we but in us to assume in march

Such white luxuriance of May for ours.

We stood a moment so in a strange world,

Myself as one his own pretense deceives;

And then I said the truth (and we moved on).

A young beech clinging to its last year's leaves. 

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