The spring you see and smell had its roots in an ancient forest.
Georgia’s trees tell many stories of success and failure, an ecological heritage that has
sheltered humans from climate and poverty.
Long ago on a continent far away was a warm, humid forest. In it were many kinds of
plants, each locked into fierce competition to collect and control resources. The
successful ones could grow, defend themselves and reproduce. Only successful plants
survived.
To succeed, a tree had to reproduce. One successful reproduction system was “cone
bearing.” Early in tree history, many forms of spirally designed cones were produced
on branches and along trunks for seed production.
Large, woody cones held seeds where the tree could nourish the embryos, and where
the wind could catch seed edges and wings for distribution across the forest.
These trees also produced small, fragile cones that held pollen. When these cones
mature, they rupture and release millions of pollen grains.
Warm, sunny days with low relative humidity help release pollen. The air around the
small cones buoyed up the pollen as the wind swirled it around the canopy tops.
Only those trees whose crowns were up in the wind could distribute pollen and seeds
successfully to new sites. Young trees had to survive for years beneath taller light- and
wind-blocking trees for their place in the sun.
For little trees, the dungeons or understories of these forests were hard to escape before
competition and pests eliminated them.
One day among the dinosaurs, a genetic experiment was set up. A small tree, growing
beneath much larger and taller brethren, generated a flower. It wasn’t derived, as cones
were, from woody twigs but from modified leaves.
This tree flower was designed not for the wind, but to attract insects, birds and small
mammals.
In this experiment, all the tree traits (and all the resources required for these traits)
needed to use wind power for reproduction could now be used instead to induce
animals to move pollen. This required new parts and designs. Trees generated new
colors, shapes and smells as enticements.
The showy tree flowers we see today are from this lineage. Their bright colors are a
stop sign for animals to explore, maybe receive a treat — and fertilize the tree by
carrying pollen.
The wind was left behind in the forest top, along with the many wind-pollinated
flowers of other tree species.
Across the plant kingdom, the showy flowers have been successful in many places. But
the miniaturized wind-pollinated flowers have become even more successful.
The forests, savannahs and prairies of Earth are covered with wind-borne pollen
producers. From some perspectives, showy flowers are relics of a genetic experiment
that failed. People have been able to extract great value from these showy-flowered
species.
For creatures that use sight and smell, tree flowers can be great attractants and a
necessity. Trees have come a long way from a simple, small, magnolia-like flower in
the bottom of a forest to the widely diverse tree-borne flowers we see outside our
windows.
Surrounded by trees, it’s easy to overlook their value. It’s also easy to ignore their
great biological history. But deep in the past, the story of trees contains many lessons.
