There’s a climbing plant making its way along the fence and when I stopped to look more closely I was amazed to see the structures it creates to get a grip of the ironwork. There are many tight, strong, spring-like spirals of bright green like this. Mostly the cross a space diagonally, not straight up, or straight down. That surprised me. I was taught that a straight line was the shortest distance between two points. It seems that plants aren’t that interested in shortest distances, and don’t do straight lines.
I read somewhere, long, long ago, that there are no straight lines in Nature. If you see straight lines, you can be pretty sure that humans have had a hand in their creation.
Life doesn’t go in straight lines either does it? I sets off along unpredictable paths, spiralling as it goes……
Despite our constant seeking out the so-called simple insights of “this causes that”, when it comes to living organisms, it’s always a bit more complex, a bit more nuanced, a lot more unpredictable than that.
And here’s something else – isn’t the shape of this just stunningly beautiful?
I mean, its enough you’d think, to be in awe of just how a plant actually creates a structure like this (from sunlight, air and water) and uses what it creates to anchor itself, to get a hold on its environment. I mean, how on earth does it do that? But, that aside, just look at it! Isn’t it gorgeous?
Leave a Reply