veins and capillaries

the veins in a leaf are like three of our body systems in one: they are like the skeleton because they hold the whole leaf open and allow it to capture sunlight and not get damaged too easily by the elements. they are like the circulatory system because distribute water from the roots up to all the cells within the leaf. and they are like a nervous system because there are chemical signals that are transmitted to the leaves from other parts of the plant through the liquid in the veins. they are also hauntingly pretty when all the chlorophyll has retreated and left behind nothing but a pattern of veins.

winter leaves

inordinate fondness for seedpods

j. b. s. haldane was a great british entomologist who classified hundreds of species of beetles, perhaps the most widely varying form of life on earth. late in his career, he spoke to a group of churchgoers about his work. feeling metaphysical, they asked him to reflect on what science had taught him about the mind of God. “i’ve deduced,” he replied, “that God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.” which reminds me, of two things. one, i am not a great scientist although i think that would have been as thrilling in its way as being an artist. and two: i am also not god, although i would love to meet her some day, and if that ever happens, i will talk about my inordinate fondness for seedpods, and ask why they were made so beautiful and so strange.

lotus seedpods

you are beautiful and strange

i’ve been taking pottery classes. and i made this porcelain vase last week. just kidding. i could spend my whole life at a potter’s wheel and never make anything as beautiful as this sea urchin made just by growing to adulthood, without a central brain, reacting to stimuli with tube feet that act like eyes. i will also never be as weird as a sea urchin.

green sea urchin exoskeleton

hey babe. you have an exquisite exoskeleton.

this will not be the last you will see of these spectacular little orbs of algorithmic beauty. i spent a glorious hour photographing them today, and ended up with at least six keepers. i won’t thrust all them on you at once. but, c’mon. talk dirty to me.

green sea urchins (strongylocentrotus droebachiensis)

coils and springs

i have always been fascinated by tendrils. it wasn’t until this century that scientists figured out how vines pull themselves up by their tendrils. they wind around the plant they are climbing, then the coil they have made contracts, and it pulls the vine up vertically, but it gets better than that, because at some point the tendril reverses direction and winds counterclockwise, so that the vine doesn’t pull the plant in a spiral. when they finally figured this out, scientists were able to invent a new type of spring with no net twist when it stretches and contracts. we just keep learning new things, and discovering how little we know.

teeny tiny vine tendril