Seeds
August 27, 2024
Sarah Kaplan, Alice Li, and Audrey Valbuena’s multimedia piece in the August 27 Washington Post “The Hidden Life of Seeds” explores the mysteries of embryonic plants. They worked with California State University at Sacramento ecologist Marina LaForgia’s whose research suggests that “seeds lying dormant in the earth can serve as a buffer against the effects of warming and could even aid efforts to restore ecosystems that have been damaged by human activities.”
My grandfather owned a seed store in Norfolk, Virginia. Every spring, I could pick out packs of vegetable and flower seeds to plant in the garden. In first grade, we took eggshells, filled them with a half-inch of soil, a quarter-inch of grass seeds, and another half-inch of soil and watched the seeds germinate and grow. I thought if I swallowed an orange seed, a tree would grow from my belly.
I worked at my grandfather’s store one summer, harvesting seeds at farms for mustard, kale, collards. Those were popular home-grown vegetables in Tidewater. I often plant seeds, obliquely aware of the combinations of minerals and sun and water which will cause them to grow. And when I stand next to a sunflower that’s at least four feet taller than me, I am in awe of how something so small can produce something so magnificent.
Kaplan, Li, and Valbuena’s article opened a new world about how seeds are an integral part of our ecosystem. Of course, I know this as purely layman’s knowledge, but to learn seeds evolve to adapt to their environment, seed banks keep species safe in times of drought, invasive species can cause native plant to become extinct. And, of course, the rhizomatic ecosystem that seeds start supports the earth.
I think of the parable in Matthew about the mustard seed: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
I think of my trip to Hungary and the strudel filled with poppy seeds I ate in Budapest. My flight attendant friend who was with me wouldn’t eat it because she could have a positive urine test for opiates.
I think of my visit to Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean two years ago and the Global Seed Vault, the insurance for the world in case of global disaster. The vault is buried in the permafrost a few miles from Longyearbyen. The entrance reminded me of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Currently, it holds seed samples from almost a third of the world’s food crops, and as of today, it has over 1.3 million registered accessions (Svalbard Global Seed Vault website).
So much in this world to learn. I often wished I went into science. Or math. The physical working of the world still confounds me, though it fascinates me as well.
Kaplan, Sarah, Alice Li, and Audrey Valbuena. “The Hidden Life of Seeds.” Washington Post, August 27, 2024. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2024/seeds-wildflowers-superbloom-california/
Svalbard Global Seed Vault. https://seedvault.nordgen.org/Information/Depositors
