#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Common Milkweed
“It looks as if an artist had laid the seeds out. With further opening of the pod, the seeds begin to fall and float away. Each seed has lovely white silky extensions (comas) that allow them to be carried by a breeze— Craig Holdrege, The Nature Institute”
“My attempt here is to give an initial portrayal of common milkweed—its life history and relations to some of the organisms with which its life is bound up. . . In whole-organism study the task is to bring together the observations of many researchers and to paint a coherent picture of the plant and its relationships. In Goethe’s words, the goal is “to portray rather than explain” (1995, p. 57). Such a portrayal is a kind of story of the plant. . . I want to see how milkweed is formed, how its parts relate to each other, and how it relates to its environment.”
~ Craig Holdrege, The Nature Institute, From, “The Story of an Organism: Common Milkweed”
Read more of Craig's fascinating writing about Common Milkweed here.
