The Generosity of Nature

The Generosity of Nature

The Generosity of Nature by Adrian Leighton

Nature never ceases to surprise us. Wherever you look around the fields, hedgerows and trees seem tired and thirsty after our long dry summer. The crackly brown grass, reminiscent for me of distant summers in East Anglia, the premature browning and dropping of leaves from the trees and the general faded look of many plants just looking as if their could do with a good shower, signs of a continuing wait for the rain to come. The summer flowers which in the past still gave us colour well into September have long since flowered , seeded and shrunk back into their brown recycling mode.

Crab Apple

Yet in all this we cannot but be overwhelmed by the sight of a super abundance of fruit from trees and bushes. Wherever you look the sheer mass of fruit is extraordinary and seemingly out of sequence with the seasonal weather. My ambles along the canal take me past damson trees with branches bowing from the weight of fruit, oak trees with acorns on every tip, brambles exuding fat black berries and berries of every kind on every bush. In the garden also, our crab apple trees groan with red and yellow balls of fire. Apples, pears, plums, too, a cornucopia of fruit we have not experienced before.

So why this year? This generosity of produce seems so out of kilter with the daily diet of human gloom and disarray. This mass explosion of fruit is not uncommon in nature and goes by the name of a “mast year”. This in the past has particularly referred to Oak trees and the abundance of acorns produced. Just why this happens is still a mystery to us but all trees do it. Various ideas have been put forward for this apparently random event, often occurring at 2-5 yearly intervals. As far as we know it is not to do with the weather conditions. For it happens all over the country at the same time in different conditions. Somehow all the trees coordinate this fruiting. One idea is that in this way, some of the seeds dropped will survive the attentions of squirrels, mice and the like to become seedlings. What is extraordinary is that the trees all seem to know to do it at the same time and also that it is done at great expense to the tree itself. An enormous amount of energy is poured into this production of so much seed and the aim seems to ensure the next generation. In the past, pig farmers used to look forward to this bonanza of free food for their pigs, The term “mast” derives from the Old English word “maest” meaning “nuts of the forest trees”. But it is not just humans and their animals that benefit. It also increases the insect population as seen in the abumdance of the misshapen or beautifully shapen “oak apples” which can be find. These are indicative of insects which help to feed hungry birds like Blue Tits. So the generosity of the trees extends beyond just our human benefit.

Oak Tree Mast

For many plants, the results of one year are conditional upon the previous year’s conditions. How that plays out is again not entirely known as many factors may be involved but there does seem to be some “communication” between the trees which as yet we do not understand.

As with animals, it is a sign that all life around is dynamic and interactive and is in no way “dumb”. In some ways, the dumbest form of life is homo sapiens. Such awareness of life around us, reminds us that “we do not know what we do not know”, an hopefully that makes us less dumb.