Spartina

by Catherine Schmitt

Gray’s Beach, 1995 I was supposed to be watching the birds but all I wanted to do was stare at the grass, waves of silvery green rippling in the breeze. The birds were beyond, at the true sandy edge of the sea, and as I walked toward them through the grass, I longed to linger in the marsh, to study the pools with their bacterial blooms of purple and yellow, to name the rushes and sedges that grew among the grass. At night, after a day watching piping plovers on the beach and a shift at the bookstore in town, I sat outside next to the river and listened to the sailboats clink and the tall grasses whisper in the dark.

Plum Island Sound, 1998 By then I knew that the tall form of saltmarsh cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora, grows along the immediate creek banks, and the shorter form fills the rest of the low marsh, flooded twice each day by the tide. The tall form makes a good handhold when climbing in and out of boats, and the short form crunches underfoot. The mud is soft and slippery, the ground uneven.

Away from the water and slightly higher, cowlicked swirls of salt marsh hay, Spartina patens, mixed with black rush and sea lavender, mark the monthly high tides. The ground is level, firmer.

Spartina creates land by filtering sediment from the flood tide, binding it with roots and stems into peat, thin layer by thin layer, tide by tide, year by year, the marsh grows. By reading the marsh, shadows and contours of alterniflora and patens, I could know the pull of the moon on the sea. I was the plant person in a scientific crew of fish, rock, soil, and water persons, all of us living by the tide, in a birdwatcher’s cottage surrounded by Spartina. I weighed each layer of silt as it washed in with the flood, counted and measured blades of grass, analyzed the carbon in clumps of grass, named all that grew among the grass. The laboratory reeked with rotting samples of Spartina. I smelled Spartina, I smelled of Spartina. I read the grass like a map or a clock, but I still didn’t know where I was going, or when. I only knew the tide, and the shadows of the grass.

Chesapeake Bay, 2000 Another cottage on another tidal river surrounded by marsh, but within a slow, strange, southern landscape of cornfields and pine plantations—unfamiliar, except for the grass, which was everywhere. Spartina encroached upon the raised garden beds, and tried to take back the lawn. It lined the roadside ditches and separated field and forest from bay. Above the marsh, eagle and osprey tangled over fish. There were kestrels on the telephone wires and turtles in the road, quail in the driveway and rabbits in the yard, crabs and oysters in the water. Sunsets stretched across the sky in radiant streaks. There were a few fig trees, overgrown honeysuckle and rosemary, but mostly there was grass, glittering with salt, and the bay, rising fast. I thought I had found a home, but it was time to leave.

Maine, 2001 Downeast Maine is a rocky place. I sought out Spartina when and where I could, in pockets along the hardened shore and in a few creek-drained marshes, in stories about polluted estuaries and restored rivers, eroding beaches and damaging storms. Squeezed between rough seas and steep forests, the marshes turn to gold each fall and are scraped by ice each winter. The frozen tufts are slow to green up in the spring, but by summer the grass has grown tall and glossy. Sometimes, when I’m walking along the rocky shore, Spartina far from my mind, I encounter a handful of shoots in a scrap of sand, familiar blades of grass taken root in a place I’d never expected. And those are the moments I know I am home.

Catherine is a science writer based in Bangor, Maine

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Photo credits: Catherine Schmitt

A Timeless Gift

by Dylan Michael

My high school, realizing the importance of the well-being of the students, used flowers as a way to brighten student’s day. Every year the student council would organize Carnation Day, where each student could purchase carnations for someone else in the school. For only $1 per flower, a student could send as many carnations to as many people as they desired. Each color of the carnation had its own positive meaning. Yellow carnations said ‘you brighten my day’. White carnations signaled the recipient was your best friend. Pink carnations indicated that you care about the recipient. Purple carnations were a little goofy and meant that the recipient was a sexy beast. And last but not least, red carnations that symbolized your love.

At that moment I realized I had forgotten to send my girlfriend any flowers at all! I thought she was going to kill me . . .

On Carnation Day, I loved seeing hundreds of students walking around with colorful flowers in their hands and smiles on their faces. It was one of the best days of the school year because everyone was so happy that somebody cared enough about them to send them a carnation. My Senior year, I forgot about Carnation Day and did not order any flowers. When a dozen carnations were handed to me in homeroom, I was shocked. At that moment I realized I had forgotten to send my girlfriend any flowers at all! I thought she was going to kill me, but when we finally got to see each other, she wasn’t as upset as I thought she would be. Although I could sense the disappointment in her tone, I think I felt worse than she did by the end of the day.

" I have found a bundle of flowers to be the best way to express my feelings towards the people closest to me."

To make up for my absentmindedness, I ran to the nearest flower shop and bought the nicest bouquet I could find. I made sure it contained at least one red carnation to emphasize my love. When I gave the bouquet to her, it was as if she had forgotten that I didn’t send her any flowers in the first place. I have found a bundle of flowers to be the best way to express my feelings towards the people closest to me. Even living over four hours away from home, I send a bouquet of flowers to my mom and girlfriend on the holidays as a way to show my love for them. 

In my plant biology class, I learned that flower petals are modified leaves designed to attract pollinators. Even though people are not (usually) pollinators, we are still drawn to flowers. Even though keeping flowers for aesthetic reasons does not benefit us in terms of food, we still tend flowers in gardens and homes. Why is that?

Researchers from Ben Gurion University in Bersheva, Israel argue that people tend flowers because it makes people happy and improves people’s mood. In a 2018 article in the journal Behavioral Sciences, they write:

“Flowers are an apt example of being aware of the environment around us

and of how we engage with the world through skilled interaction through our

bodies—by using all of our senses. This happens through moving our bodies

within space rather than only by contemplating the environment. Flowers,

as described above, demand us to get close to smell them, to move

towards them to find them in nature, to water them, to pick them,

and to carry them in our hands.”

Flowers are nature’s most precious gifts. They are beautiful and fragrant. They can express your feelings for nearly any emotion including love, gratitude, sorrow, longing, happiness, or even admiration. Carnation Day was the best day of the year because love filled the air in my high school’s hallways. There was a smile on everybody’s face and everything seemed like a dream. Even though the flower is the gift, it is the meaning behind giving it as a gift which makes it priceless.

Dylan is a 20 year old junior at the University of Pittsburgh studying biology and pre-med. He is from a small town called Berwick, Pennsylvania, which is about an hour away from Scranton, Pennsylvania.

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Photo Credits:(Top) by Sidney Pearce on Unsplash; (Bottom) provided by author

Keep your grandma close, and your strawberry plants even closer

by Carly Glover

I think it is typical for most young people to come to the consensus that knowing your way around a garden is a skill geared mostly towards the older generations. I can attest to this, because my very own grandma had one of the most magical backyards I’ve ever seen (admittedly, I may be a bit biased). Nana Carole had a healthy mixture of just about everything in her garden. Bushels of colorful morning glories lined the sidewalk, climbing leafy green vines scaled the porch beams, and mighty tomato plants produced the juiciest fruits I have ever eaten. She really had it all. However, the plant she was famous for in the neighborhood was the one she loved above all plants: the wild strawberries. 

Nana Carole was a lover of sunlight, cold beer, flowers, and wild strawberries.

In early spring, when the snow melted away and the grass returned to its rich green color, Nana Carole would first tend her wild strawberry patch. Nana Carole’s strawberries were half the size of cultivated strawberries, but her fruits were rich in flavor. I always jumped at the chance to help her whenever she made strawberry jam (She usually had to swat my hand from the bowl once or twice to make sure there was enough strawberries left to make the jam). I eventually grew to an age-- 10 years old--where I wasn’t a nuisance in the backyard and Nana Carole would ask me to help her out. This request was music to my ears and that summer enriched my appreciation for all plants, but wild strawberries in particular. 

From above, wild strawberries look like a mere weed. Upon closer inspection the fruit is a rich, deep red color and small white flowers sprout from stems creeping  along the ground. I think the aspect of the plant that Nana Carole loved most was that is was a perennial – meaning that it had multiple growing seasons throughout its lifetime, so they did not need to be replanted every single year. Once established, wild strawberry plants require little care. As a ten-year-old, I was eager to tend the strawberries everyday to ensure they had enough water on hot days. I even built a small fence around the strawberries to prevent herbivory with the help of my pap. Another enchanting quality of these strawberries is that wildlife, especially butterflies, are attracted to them. I spent countless hours on sunny days in that small strawberry patch, sitting as still as a statue in the hopes that any butterfly passing by would stop and visit the plant so I could take a closer look. 

The summers I spent at Nana Carole’s taught me so much; not only about my new-found respect for plants, but also how it bonded me to a person I hold so close to my heart. Nana Carole passed away on Mother’s Day in 2014. In her obituary she was described as , “a lover of sunlight, cold beer, flowers, and wild strawberries”. I cannot thank my Nana Carole enough for her green thumb and the lessons she has instilled within me to care for plants, which is now reflected in my future career path.

Nana Carole had a healthy mixture of just about everything in her garden.

After Nana Carole died, I noticed how prevalent wild strawberries were outside of the backyard where I had grown up. I realized that these plants are dynamic and are equipped to grow just about anywhere. Roadsides, edges of woods, forests and even gravel paths are not uncommon places to find sprouts of these nifty little plants. Although Nana Carole has passed, her spirit lives beyond just the means of memories. I’m reminded of her everyday looking into my backyard at home. Just before my dad sold her house, we lifted one strawberry plant and pulled off the crowns, enabling us to plant our very own patch of wild strawberries at home.

Carly is a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh where she studies Biology. She is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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Photo credits: (Top) Strawberry patch by Ruth-helen [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) on Wikimedia Commons]. Photos of Nana Carole provided by the author.