1. Other than its size, what caught my attention was the pile of fallen leaves collected in the middle of this epiphytes, named Bird's Nest Fern (Asplenium nidus). These fallen leaves of the host tree were accumulated in its nest and will be decomposed to become humus. It will absorb and store a big amount of water for the epiphytes. The fern nest becomes potential home for many small creatures.
2. Look at the bark skin, the interesting shades of brown like oil-paint impastos.
3. Climbers. Upon touching an object, the part making contact will stop growing, the outer side continues to grow, such imbalance distribution of meristem resulting the climbers to curve, to be able to hold on to something else.
4. Another example.
5. Livistonia endauensis, a palm tree originated from Malaysia. Why do they have a small "folding line" across the leaf and what's the function of getting folded? Such feature is not commonly found in other palm trees.
6. The smell of Earth: pressing your palm on this bryophytes and smell it, similar to the smell you get before rain.
7. I suppose certain leaves are naturally corrugated to strengthen themselves from getting folded. What do you think?
8. Heavily fissured bark of Asam Jawa (Tamarindus indica).
9. Young frond, take note of its curves.
10. Rectangular fern leaf. Name unknown.
11. This plant looks amazing from a distance. Young bright leaves emerged from the dark. Younger leaves are brighter because the amount of chlorophylls is lesser. Bright small young translucent leaves also allow the sunshine to penetrate deep down, giving adequate sunlight for the mature leaves for photosynthesis.
12. Pattern and texture.
13. Why do palms expose part of their roots?
14. Why wavy leaves? (this question goes align with why certain leaves are corrugated and folded?)
15. Red Sealing Wax Palm, aka Lipstick Palm (Cyrtostachys renda). The red petioles was then used by nobility for imprinting a seal on documents and letters (excertp from Stern S., rarepalm.com).
16. Red again? Younger leaves obtain red colouration due to mainly the presence of anthocyanins and the lack of chlorophyll. Scientists believed the colouration of red is a 'delayed greening' strategy (Nathaniel J. Dominy 2002), keeping the young leaves devoid of nutritive value until they reach full size - because young leaves suffer greatest predation from invertebrate herbivores (Coley 1983).
1. Other than its size, what caught my attention was the pile of fallen leaves collected in the middle of this epiphytes, named Bird's Nest Fern (Asplenium nidus). These fallen leaves of the host tree were accumulated in its nest and will be decomposed to become humus. It will absorb and store a big amount of water for the epiphytes. The fern nest becomes potential home for many small creatures.
2. Look at the bark skin, the interesting shades of brown like oil-paint impastos.
3. Climbers. Upon touching an object, the part making contact will stop growing, the outer side continues to grow, such imbalance distribution of meristem resulting the climbers to curve, to be able to hold on to something else.
4. Another example.
5. Livistonia endauensis, a palm tree originated from Malaysia. Why do they have a small "folding line" across the leaf and what's the function of getting folded? Such feature is not commonly found in other palm trees.
6. The smell of Earth: pressing your palm on this bryophytes and smell it, similar to the smell you get before rain.
7. I suppose certain leaves are naturally corrugated to strengthen themselves from getting folded. What do you think?
8. Heavily fissured bark of Asam Jawa (Tamarindus indica).
9. Young frond, take note of its curves.
10. Rectangular fern leaf. Name unknown.
11. This plant looks amazing from a distance. Young bright leaves emerged from the dark. Younger leaves are brighter because the amount of chlorophylls is lesser. Bright small young translucent leaves also allow the sunshine to penetrate deep down, giving adequate sunlight for the mature leaves for photosynthesis.
12. Pattern and texture.
13. Why do palms expose part of their roots?
14. Why wavy leaves? (this question goes align with why certain leaves are corrugated and folded?)
15. Red Sealing Wax Palm, aka Lipstick Palm (Cyrtostachys renda). The red petioles was then used by nobility for imprinting a seal on documents and letters (excertp from Stern S., rarepalm.com).
16. Red again? Younger leaves obtain red colouration due to mainly the presence of anthocyanins and the lack of chlorophyll. Scientists believed the colouration of red is a 'delayed greening' strategy (Nathaniel J. Dominy 2002), keeping the young leaves devoid of nutritive value until they reach full size - because young leaves suffer greatest predation from invertebrate herbivores (Coley 1983).
Nature vs Designer
ReplyDeleteNature, a straightforward term offers another window on other world of imperviousness to any flesh and blood as one transcribes its quality in a metaphysical context. Literally, nature spells out the normal conditions under which all Homo sapiens are able to perceive through their ‘foolproof’ sensory system. The events taking place around us are quite intelligible to the human nation who constantly vouches to be having the superior mind. Such excitement is dampened especially when our physiological system seems to be faulty or that even the Nobel-prize winners are transformed into pathetic victims of the inscrutable truths underpinning every aspect of the nature. The sheer amounts of events that our minds are permeable to are negligible for our sensory system is handicapped in some way. Men have been going all out in the zeal of unearthing god’s will through the physical existence. Much credit has been done to the ancient nobles with their great discoveries about the perennial truths of the nature. “The survivor of the fittest” for example would probably have provided a good farce to the creator if the theory is proved otherwise. Worse still, the mundane nature of intelligence in us always cripples the creative powers gifted by the almighty, engendering more and more emotionless people. The Islamic prophets had begged their caliphs to appreciate the beauty of the nature from their within. In no way can anyone of us find the imperishable notions about the world because the concept of ‘being qua being’ that rules every aspect in our living environs is not what a normal man can comprehend. Anyhow, the esthetic values emanating from the nature are limitless and somewhat spiritual in essence. “If you wanna find a good designer, the Lord of this universe is the best guru.”
The essential greenery speaks eloquently to our sense of art. The world is painted green because the Great Designer knows of our needs and wants. Probably, he is also a bona fide physician who studies the mortal’s nervous system. We crave ‘green’ as effective balm to soothe our vulnerable eyeballs. Astonishingly, we can never obtain anything green from our bodies. We must, consequently, live symbiotically with the nature, with the green trunks in this natural biosphere. Perhaps, we do count on each other for subsistence. We consume the organic parts of them and they do live on the decomposed remnants of our ancestors. Beyond that, the helpless plants cannot do anymore harm to us. Conversely, the egotistic men are constantly deriving benefits from the nature for the sake of themselves. Imitation products of the phylum Filicinophyta can be found elsewhere as if the species of the plantae kingdom had no say in asserting their copyright! In this respect, all designers are sardonically downright copycats. The feat achieved in the realm of art has sacrificed most biotic elements. A painting using fluorescent colorings extracted from the fire flies reveal its invaluable beauty. The killers end up getting much credit for his killings. The creator of such color-stuff will never earn a single reward. After all, we learn from the nature. A good sense of art is tantamount to good synchronization with the nature. The Zea may species generously displays its vivid yellow while the genus hibiscus arrays its mesmerizing red above board. Orchid shows blue pods among the others. Synergistically, they strive towards beatifying the monotonous green through their originality in design. Men again infringe on the plantae regulations by using red, yellow and blue to form their primary colors. Yet, they fancy themselves the great inventors of color. Hence, men keep on elogizing their efforts, oblivious to the contributions of the nature – a hideous phenomenon.
By a visitor, J-C
The demarcation between humans and nature (if you allow me to exclude men from Nature) is the sense of consciousness. The fact that we are conscious at our actions as we are known since the Homo erectus, distance us from the common call "Nature". But what exactly is "Nature"?
ReplyDeleteI'd think about "Nature" as being everything. This project - despite initiated out of a desire to ponder - aims at shifting the benchmark of image-referencing/image-looking (and people have been doing this, we are no pioneers). Therefore in this project, I still feel the division between men and Nature: a self-realisation that humans have done something bad to Nature...but, could we ever do anything bad to Nature if we are part of Nature?
If we look farther to the history of life, it evolved out of mineral reactions and energy. From unicellular life to multicellular life, individuals to community. Diversity and dependency promised sufficiency and sustainability, aren't all these frameworks of Nature? After all, in primordial life recorded in fossil, humans suspected microbes lived in toxic sites (volcanic vents, hot springs, toxic metals) devoid of oxygen, alien to the life forms today.
It leads me to doubt. Has Environmentalism nothing to do with Nature but another ideology of men trying to save ourselves, the organisms (flora/fauna) that we sympathised and the relationships in between (ecology and eco-management) from our perceived exacerbation? If all us extinct, new life forms will probably arise, maybe life forms that need "pollutions" to survive. Nature is endless, tireless, flexible and modified by all within.
Nature-an experiment
ReplyDeleteIt’s a thoughtful idea, indeed. The hands of men are constantly perhaps intentionally vitiating the nature with no regard to the dreadful consequences. If dumpsites are unsightly, the sea ends up becoming the bottomless pit of rubbish. Now, the temperature hovers over 35-40 degrees, cornering us into preserving the nature although most are no longer as pristine, just to save our selfish enzymes that live snugly at 37 degree. Well, protection afforded to it has been patchy. Some of such campaigns were sporadic as men attempted to show concern to the Almighty God, as though He could not look through human nature, that humans are hypocrites. Shifting to the root causes of environmental nature erosion, reasons are known and lengthy discussions have been enunciated in all publications. But we prefer living in perpetual ignorance, continuing to indulge in minor luxuries by undermining the great nature. Men are totally reprehensive with respect to the immense harm incurred. All that breathes the vital oxygen in this atmosphere have to bear the brunt of such immoral actions. Can we succumb to denial? Yes, we are not absolutely accountable for the effects. Let’s take a faltering step to propound something on other inadvertent culprits. The microbes, E. coli and paramecium are doing the same things like us. They spare no effort to cause mishaps, although on a small scale, localized in well regulated physiological systems of the animal world. Thousands of them appeal filth to survive. So, who are to blame? The entire system is akin to a holarchy, microbes being the smaller entities while God the larger holon. The nature is merely a matter of space-time entity. Human activities exert cancerous causal relationships in the whole temporal and spatial context. Changes being made are due to the fact that the nature’s membrane that allows influx and outflow of abominable activities are too porous. It’s more conceivable if some asked ‘who compels the microbes to inflict humans?” and “why we cut trees to find herbal remedies and thus cause harm to the nature”. The answers are obvious. The nature holds other entities in a tight-box and we are no more than experimental objects. All doings will be recorded and the whole experimental set-ups will be ended in a rubbish bin. Simple as that!
Copy righted ideas by a visitor, JC-KW