Learning From Plants

There are many lessons we can learn from plants. I look for these lessons as I walk through the gardens here at Kona Kai and also when I am anywhere else plants are present. Different plants exemplify certain particular lessons more apparently than others, and I've tried to pick out some examples and photos from the Gardens here at Kona Kai:

Plants don't need much, and can do a lot with very little - just sunlight, water, air, and nutrients from the soil. It's pretty incredible what, and how much, plants can produce given only these ingredients. If I told you I could produce some delicious food, potent medicine, useful materials, and objects of beauty from just air, light, and some water and soil given enough time, you would bet that's unlikely, but it's exactly what happens if I have a seed or two in the soil I'm going to use. The chemistry behind this apparent alchemy plants utilize is incredibly complex and still manages to astound scientists today. I hope that I can be like plants and transform what sustains my body into things exponentially more useful and beautiful for the world.

A very productive papaya plant (Carica papaya) in our tropical fruit garden producing delicious fruit from simple ingredients.

Plants make good use of all their resources without much waste. When a plant acquires something, it's going to be making use of it and does not keep resources that it does not use beyond what is prudent food/water storage for its environment. Because a plant only keeps what it makes use of, remaining resources are available to other organisms, allowing them to grow and flourish along with it. I have found this to be a great way to live - keeping only what I need and use regularly and then passing on whatever I'm not using to someone else who can make use of it. In this way, other people can flourish along with me and I make as efficient use of the planet's limited resources as possible.

The coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) has roots, a trunk, and leaves to take care of its needs.

Plants own nothing beyond themselves and seem quite content. Their glory is not in what they own but being what they are to the greatest potential possible in their given situation. Thoreau wrote that a poet's most challenging work is his/her own life, which also has the potential to be the greatest work of poetry they can possibly produce. If I put more effort and energy into developing myself as a better human being instead of into acquiring and accumulating things, perhaps I can write a living poem as beautiful as the ones I see being written by the plants in our gardens.

The intricate and delicate beauty of plants is poetry more eloquent than verse.

Plants are not striving to be something they aren't, comparing themselves with others and envying them - the concept is quite foreign to them. They are who they are and to see a plant growing true to its own unique nature, no matter how inconspicuous or seemingly insignificant, is beautiful. In the orchid house today, I saw the tiniest orchid plant I have ever seen in my life putting out a single flower. As small as it is, the orchid could figure it counts for nothing in comparison with the great coconut and mahogany trees overshadowing the orchid house (or the much bigger and more floriferous orchids nearby) and so shrivel up and die in their shadows. But it's doing its own thing as the type of plant it is and just so happened to be the one that caught my attention over any other orchid or tree nearby. If every plant tried to be as big as a mahogany, have flowers like a hibiscus, and leaves like a palm, then the world would have lost out on the incredible beauty and usefulness found in plants' diversity. The same is true for people - I am extremely thankful that each person has different gifts and character qualities so that we can learn from and help each other to do things that we would not be able to accomplish if we were all of the same talents and character. And so I should strive to develop the good qualities and talents of my unique self and thereby contribute the most to the beauty and function of humanity.

Juuuust managing to peek over the lip of its pot. Heroic.

Plants grow and bloom where they are planted since they have no option of relocating to other places like animals and humans can. I have seen plants growing in places where conditions are extremely harsh and yet they still put out leaves and bloom, making the best of the situation they are given. These plants remind me that I too can grow and "bloom" even in the toughest situations, hardest times, and most hostile places.

Firebush (Hamelia patens) growing out of a rock!

Blooming beautifully in spite of its much-less-than-ideal situation.

Plants are patient and long-suffering without complaint. Plants are peed on, climbed on, cut up, rained on, snowed on, tossed about by strong winds, infected with disease, pushed to their limits for production, and often die a slow death. Yet even in the midst of these things, plants remain silent and serene like the silent sun, moon, stars, and clouds overhead. I find it startling just how quiet the world is without the noise we humans make with cars, machines, talking, TV, music, etc. I thrive when I take time to be silent and still in a place free from those noises. When I do this, part of me becomes one with that peacefulness and I can bring this back with me into my daily life. Plants can be powerful witnesses of serenity in the midst of chaos, as they are just as peaceful in the city as they are in the country; they seem to transcend the noise.

The red mangroves (Rhizophora mangle) out across the bay from Kona Kai are a great escape via kayak into the quiet (except when people head down to Key West for the speedboat races).

Plants consume in order to produce, thereby benefitting many other organisms, especially humans. I think of the many ways plants benefit me - fruits for food and spice, leaves for shade, roots for medicine, trunks for materials and energy, flowers for fragrance and beauty, etc. Given the food I eat and water I drink, I too can be a producer and provide for the well-being of the other organisms on this planet (humans, plants, and animals). I hope to be a consumer who consumes in order to produce for the benefit of the wider world, not a consumer who consumes in order to consume more for myself.

The pineapple (Ananas x) is a symbol of generosity, and it is certainly generous using so many of its resources to produce such large and tasty fruits.

If you have any lessons you've learned from plants, feel free to share in a comment!


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

Hidden Wonders Revealed

Ok, I've kept you waiting long enough - here are the full photos of the tiny previews from my previous post, along with the scientific and common names of each plant.  All the photos are of plants here in The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort - enjoy!

The fruit of Annona squamosa (sugar apple), which is delicious!  In our tropical fruit garden.

Billbergia pyramidalis (bromeliad) inflorescence (flower stalk).

Flower of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Fifth Dimension' (hibiscus).

Fenestraria aurantiaca (window plant or baby toes) in our Aquascape Garden.

Leaves of Cryptanthus 'Black Mystic' (bromeliad).

Chamaedorea seifrizii (bamboo palm) infructescence (fruit stalk).

A hairy petal and succulent stems of Stapelia gigantea (African starfish flower).

Bromeliad inflorescence (flower stalk). The purple and white parts are the individual flower buds.

Pineapple (Ananas) top and ornamental pink fruit.

Codiaeum variegatum (garden croton) leaves in the afternoon sun.

Ravenala madagascariensis (traveler's tree) fruits. Lemurs, which can see blue exceptionally well, disperse the seeds.

Dypsis decaryi (triangle palm) fruits developing.

Cordyline fruticosa (ti plant) inflorescences and leaves.

Male cone of Encephalartos ferox (Zululand cycad).

The nectar-rich inflorescences of Schefflera actinophylla (umbrella plant).

Fronds emerge from the center of Platycerium angolense (elephant ear fern) in our tropical courtyard.

Syngonium podophyllum (arrowhead vine) in bloom as it climbs up a mahogany.

A Tillandsia (air plant) growing in an orchid's pot in our Orchid House.

Male cone of Zamia integrifolia (coontie).

The bloom of Strelitzia reginae (orange bird-of-paradise).

From these photos alone, you can get a good idea of the incredible beauty and diversity of plants. Beyond being beautiful, they are incredibly useful to humans and the world as a whole, their diversity providing a range of products and services we have come to depend on for our survival and well-being, often in ways we don't fully realize or appreciate. With conscientious stewardship on our part, plants provide us with both beauty and utility - when it comes to nature, we really can "eat our cake and keep it, too!"


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

Beauty Unseen - "Hidden Wonders" of the Gardens

The Botanic Gardens here at Kona Kai Resort certainly are beautiful. Beyond the readily perceivable "macroscopic" beauty of the landscape as a whole, however, lies a world of "microscopic" beauty that goes largely unseen by most guests and visitors unless one knows when and where to look. One of the reasons people enjoy taking a tour with me, beyond the fact that they learn an incredible amount about plants and their relationships with people, is the uncovering of hidden wonders of intricate detail and great beauty that they would not have otherwise found. Below, I have included cropped sections of photographs I have taken of some of these hidden wonders here at Kona Kai. If you have a guess as to what any of these might be, feel free to leave a comment!  I'll reveal the identities of the plants as well as the full photographs in my next blog post.

To see and learn more about these and many other "hidden wonders," be sure to take a tour the next time you stay here at Kona Kai or pass through the Keys!


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

Blue Beauty

I was greeted by a nice surprise as I arrived at the Gardens the other day - the water lily in our front pond has sent up its first bloom! I must say, the cultivar name 'Blue Beauty' is indeed appropriate. Take a look at the "time lapse" of the bloom in the photos below, which occur in pairs (one of each is a close up of the bud or flower) at approximately two-day intervals. You will notice a change in the water from my pictures of the pond in the previous blog post - we dyed it black because the algae was getting out of control and the pond looked like pea soup. This is what I expected might happen, but we wanted to try it without dye anyways. I do love the look of the black: it makes a great reflecting pond and makes for a very nice contrast of the water with the water lily leaves and flowers. You can also still see the Gambusia when they come close to the surface, which we were hoping would be the case.

Doesn't look like another leaf...

Continuing to rise higher above the water...

Boom!

Stunning...and still a little ways to go - you can see the centermost part is still closed.

The water lily bloom is especially interesting because it closes up near the end of the day and re-opens in the morning. That's quite a bit of folding and unfolding for a bloom this size (about 4" across). The flowers will supposedly not open if it is too cloudy, but fortunately for us, we don't often have that problem here in the Keys.

The pollination strategy of the plant is an interesting one. In the early stages of the bloom, the flower's female parts are receptive and a good amount of nectar is produced over these parts. Insects are attracted to the nectar, which they will fall into by design if they find it. Any pollen collected by these insects from other flowers sticks to the nectar when they fall into it and is directed to the female parts, resulting in pollination if the right pollen is present. In the later stages of bloom, pollen is produced by the flower instead of nectar, and the flower is no longer receptive to pollen. This separation ensures that the flower is pollinated with pollen from a different plant - clever, right?

Every part of the plant has been recorded as edible in some capacity, although a couple accounts I came across of effects after eating them would make me cautious of making a salad of the plant. The plant's roots have quite a few medicinal attributes, many of which were originally discovered by Native Americans and are now being investigated by modern medical science. Be sure to take a tour with me on your next visit to the Keys to learn more about this plant and many of the other fascinating and beautiful specimens we have here at The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort!


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director