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Entering the Kingdom

By Michael Wolcott

A few miles north of Grand Canyon, deep in the largest ponderosa pine forest on the planet, a day begins. Four people give up the privacy of dreams, crawl from warm sleeping bags, and mumble good mornings.

We are a botany research crew, hired hands for science, gathering data on the Warm Fire of 2006. The Warm Fire started with a single lightning strike in early June and burned for more than a month, charring nearly 60,000 acres of the Kaibab National Forest.

Our study will catalog what plants have sprung up in the wake of the flames. The effects of such wide-scale natural events are enormous: the deaths of millions of trees and shrubs; widespread soil erosion; altered wildlife habitat; timber-choked hiking trails; colonization by new (and often noxious) plant species. One decidedly minor effect of the Warm Fire is that it created my job.

I am the crew's token layman, so not much is expected of me: I load the truck, stretch the measuring tape, haul plant and soil samples - and leave the thinking to the science heads. Being botanists, they use Latin names for the plants. So I try to follow suit.

"I wonder if we'll see any Epilobium today," someone says, fumbling with the coffee pot.

My ears perk up. I know that one! Epilobium augustifolium - fireweed - is a tall, graceful plant with showy rose-purple flowers that brightens up the blackest of charred forests. (Epilobeum, though common in the Wyoming forests where I used to work, seems to be rare here in northern Arizona. After four days on the Warm Fire, we have seen just three individuals.)

I recognize fireweed in the field--have for decades. But I learned its Latin name just three days ago. (I am re-learning my home ground on this gig. After ten summers spent in Wyoming, the Rocky Mountain plants are more familiar than those of the Colorado Plateau.)

But with a few days' help from my coworkers, the vague green blur at my feet has come into focus, sharpened into distinct communities of Southwestern plants. I easily recognize the tiny yellow-and red blossoms of Lotus wrightii (Wright's deer vetch), the palmate leaves of Lupinus argentii (silver lupine), and the gummy, hairy stems of Ribies viscosissima (sticky currant).

This knowledge hasn't come cheap. I have studied field guides, and peered through a hand lens to count bracts and petals. I've spent hours on hands and knees, inspecting subtle details like the tiny blue-green blades of Poa fendlerii, looking for the parallel lines along the center that tell me this is a native bunchgrass.

I have also faced down some emotional discomfort. Being a beginner - at anything - is not much fun for a perfectionist. I was mildly intimidated by the science-minded members of this group. They saw things I couldn't see, and said things I couldn't hold in memory: Ceanothis fendlerii, Elymus elemoides, Linum puburulum - strange words that tripped on my tongue and disappeared into the dark corners of my brain. I mouthed the Latin names repeatedly, though, until they sounded right.

Why bother? It's fair to ask. The naming of things doesn't teach much of their essences, or their relationships to the world. A strawberry tastes good whether you call it Frageria ovalis or not, right?

There are, however, two species of wild strawberry in Arizona (Frageria ovalis and Frageria bractera). Both taste good. But the leaflets of ovalis have "teeth" all the way around their margins; on bracteris, the teeth only go halfway around. It's a little detail you might not notice at first.

Subtle features like teeth on leaf margins, tiny lines on a blade of grass, and sticky goo on bushes are keys to identifying species. If you set yourself this task, your search for the right Latin binomial will by necessity take you close to the living plant. You will touch flowers, leaves, and fruits; feel the contours of roots, stems, and seeds. You'll learn the habits of plants - their favorite soil types and usual associates.

And - though I am certainly no expert - I can say for sure that the closer you look, the more fascinating, and the more strangely beautiful, this green kingdom becomes.

Michael Wolcott is at home in Flagstaff, Ariz.