The University of Tennessee Forest Resources Research and Education Center is a 250 acre property in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Most of the work undertaken here would not be visible to the casual visitor. The public usually walk and hike the miles of trails here, some wide graded gravel roads, others rutted and rocky dirt paths. Tree species by the hundreds are signed and identified. Living in Oak Ridge as I do, a drive to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an hour drive away, whereas the arboretum is five minutes. For botanical nerds, the range of flora is similar. In the meantime, genetic research, hybridization, forest management classes, taxa counters with their clipboards, proceed almost invisibly among the visitors.
When we first retired here three years ago, trees were the big attraction. Each trail featured its own ecological niche, whether an oak-hickory population or a rhododendron cove. These weren’t your everyday suburban trees. In just over the span of a year I learned to identify almost four dozen trees by bark or leaf. Bit by bit though, my eye would be caught, as the seasons changed, by other patches of green. In the middle of winter, a bright clump of moss, an unusual fern, or a tenacious lichen would make itself known.
If winter was a time for spotting plants of the evergreen variety, spring became a race to see the first wildflower blooms, usually in March, but occasionally as early as mid February. Now I find that my observing habits lean to the tiniest of plants, the ones you would easily overlook unless you are specifically looking for them. In the shadow of one of the tallest poplars, a single bluet peeks from under a dead brown leaf. Soon we expect the May Apples, Solomon's Seal, wild Ginger, and other early arrivals.
Once the field of visual focus is sufficiently narrowed, one might notice in a space no larger than a square inch a microscopic sapling like plant that looks for all the world like the smallest pine tree in existence. In fact it is called a Ground Pine, but it is actually a club moss, seldom seen and rarely much taller than two inches. It can develop into a colony connected by the roots if given enough time. I have seen two of these on a particular trail, and because of this, I have cultivated the habit of looking for what I now call the tiny things.
Life on earth started with the tiny things. All forms evolved from bacterium and algal cells. Most of evolution’s greatest successes have been tiny things. Think mosquitos, beetles and ants. And after we are gone, after our planet removes us through attrition, this most reckless of her experiments, I actually take comfort in the likelihood that many of these tiny things will survive this almost unfathomable sixth great extinction. Say goodbye, then, to one of these smallest of plants, and wish them well on your next nature walk, and even offer to them a sincere apology. Pick up some plastic as a token of good faith. And then notice, again, how absolutely beautiful they are.
