anthropometaphors

Have you ever heard a banana tree sing in the rain? Banana trees are singing plants, and their voices change depending on whether they sing in the rain or bathe in the sunshine. Consider the playful rainsong, as music drips into the trumpet heart, giggles echo in the belly of the banana tree, accompanied by raindrops playing percussion on the leaves. A different tune buzzes from leaves taut with the pleasure of a sunsong. If heard from below, joy filtered through chlorophyll fills the ears. When heard from above, the radiant song can be felt on the face like the throb of a heart.

My personal favorite is the humming of a Greek fig tree in midday sun. I found the best way to receive the song is to stand beneath the canopy and feel the chorus pour down through full green leaves, transmitted as it is from sun to leaf to air to skin. Fig trees bask not only in sun but in heat. When all around is quiet, hiding in shade, the fig pulls up toward the sun, buoyed by heat and the silent afternoon.

Plants can scream with delight. How else can you explain the shouts of bright pink bougainvillea on a west-facing fence on an August afternoon? I imagine almost everyone can hear bougainvillea sing, as she is so loud and unapologetic for the particular scream of bliss she repeats, all afternoon, all week, all summer.

Autumn is nothing more than a riot of laughter. Have you ever taken a drive in the country while the leaves are changing on deciduous trees? I imagine driving along, probably with the windows rolled up and the car’s heat put on to counter the nippy fall chill. Irregardless of whether the windows are up, the laugh of the trees is distinctly audible as the corner is turned and a maple steps forth, turning from green to gold. To copper. To a red so daring and loud as to almost be purple. This is their party, their big hurrah; the relief of the end of a long year, and the laugh of goodbye before a long nap. A gala, a splurge, a last song before slowly settling in for winter silence. Deciduous trees definitely prefer to sing as part of a choir. Harmony, melody, they love to sing in a round. A cacophony of voices, different, laughing, yet complementing one another perfectly. Occasionally the deciduous will perform solo, but the laughter isn’t nearly as encompassing.

Houseplants tend to be shy. You know why, don’t you? They are foreigners, and soft-spoken. They are usually immigrants from Central and South America, and feel lost, disoriented, and lonely. Some houseplants are convinced they are on the verge of being deported, and as such, do their best to be quiet and go unnoticed. If you can nurture a timid houseplant – with compassion, patience, and understanding (or if you are fortunate to get a headstrong houseplant, who is bold and fearless in a new country) – you will be blessed with the exotic warmth of a song from the tropics. Which song? That depends on the houseplant. Often the songs are in Spanish, sung deep and low. Notes of tremulous joy, rootbound in sadness as the plant grabs for sun from above while caught in a pot from below, nestle in corners, hoping to be forgotten. These plants tend to sing quietly, and often at night, their songs haunting your dreams with a yearning for fruit and warm hands.

Proud jade. Nearly self-sufficient, this is a plant plump with self-importance. After all, what other plant tolerates independence – bordering on neglect – in captivity? Toots and honks and little rat-a-tats are trumpeted at unpredictable intervals. Jade sings to itself, acting as it’s own marching band, satisfied as it’s voice is clearly the most important. Don’t ever try to reason with a jade, this stubborn plant will always be it’s own counselor, audience and best friend.

I <3 plants, and occasionally daydream about anthropomorphizing the characteristics of certain genera and species. To be honest, I wrote a story about plant voices a while back. I’ll dig it up tonight and post it so you can see what I’m talking about.

Scientists are curious about how plants sound, but in an entirely different way. Rather than creating fictional personalities for plants, scientists in Germany have found a way to visualize the sonar echoes returned by plants. The idea behind this being fruit bats, who locate specific fruit-bearing plants with sonar, may be identifying plants by sound. The researchers found certain plant species indeed have recognizable, unique sonar signatures and are learning how bats interrogate and “communicate” with plants. This is a language I want to learn!

Here’s a link to a brief digest of the research on Science’s website, and a link to the full PLOS article.

I just finished reading David Quammen’s article in the April 2008 issue of Harper’s, “Contagious cancer: The evolution of a killer”. The gist being: cancer evolves, and is demonstrated as being highly infectious in Tasmanian devils.

Poor devils, their relative physical isolation has created an inbred population whose members are genetically very similar – and vulnerable – to a cancer transmitted during mating known as Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD). Not sexually transmitted in the traditional sense, but rather DFTD is a cancer spread by the habit of mutual face-biting during courtship (and so forth).

In humans, cancer is a very unique affair. My tumors would be derived from my own cells, growing unchecked. Henry’s cancerous tumors would be made of his own cells, as would yours. DFTD tumors found on the devils were all genetically identical to one another and distinct from their host. While not quite a distinct “species”, DFTD is a self-propagating, parasitic, cellular mass. As such, DFTD is undergoing cellular replication, environmental selection and epigenetic expression. DFTD may not be a living organism, but as a genetic conglomeration it is evolving.

As Quammen smoothly knit these concepts together, I bumped along on a shuttle during my commute home from work. The proverbial light bulb went on above my head, and I felt a tightness in my stomach. “What if…”s began bubbling up from parts of my brain I’d long considered dried up. Suddenly ideas and questions came to mind, and – more shockingly – the motivation to learn more.

Now I’m looking into topics integrating genetics, evolution, ecology and disease, and reading about research laboratories at university.