all the world in a single bud

i’ve been reading about buds, and they are fascinating. here’s a few things i’ve learned:

• buds for the following year start to form in summer. sometime around august. it takes a tremendous amount of energy to make a bud, so trees would not be able to do it in winter or early spring. buds are fully formed by autumn.
• the buds remain in a state of dormancy for over six months
• buds are signaled when to emerge from dormancy by hormones
• hormones are triggered by a combination of light (shorter nights) and temperature (warmer weather)
• many plants will not break dormancy unless they have been exposed to a long stretch of cold temps (vernalization)
• plants produce primary buds and auxiliary buds–backups in case of an emergency like a late frost or pruning
• flower buds and leaf buds are different
• flower buds can be male or female
• flower buds and leaf buds open independently and are triggered by separate hormones

i just can’t get over this idea that plants have hormones, and that they perceive and then react to their perceptions. that they are at some level just at a different point on a spectrum of consciousness, and that we are more connected to them than separated from them. i have thought of trees as friends at times. now i think i may not have been so crazy.

lilac buds