A Different Kind of Plant

OK, I'm going to break my rule here in deference to my son, Forest.  He's been fascinated by nuclear energy technology since he was in first grade.  His knowledge of fission and fusion are far beyond mine.  The highlight of our trip for him was the visit to EBR-1, or Experimental Breeder Reactor 1. It's part of Idaho National Laboratory, where our scientists first started to work on harnessing the atom for peaceful purposes.  This plant was the first to test the concept of the breeder reactor--a nuclear power plant that produces more fuel than it consumes.

I was a bit apprehensive of the possibility of exposure to radiation, but Forest assured me that the risk was minimal.  Indeed, although the sign just inside the door cautions all visitors to keep their shoes on, they effectively make the point that we are exposed to a lot more radiation in the course of a variety of other activities than we are likely to be exposed to during our visit.  After entering, the stage was nicely set with period furniture.

Of course, to me, the dials and controls all look like props.  To him, they seemed to mean something.  They had a very nice display about the geology of the Snake River Plain.  I didn't know it, but under the desert's porous lava lies an aquifer with as much water as Lake Erie, and it is very pure because the lava is a very good filter.  It takes an extremely long time for water to move through the lava--centuries for a distance of 50 miles.  Forest would have liked to stay here for an extremely long time, but we don't have centuries.

Craters of the Moon Flora

The little plants growing in the volcanic cinders at Craters of the Moon National Monument were even more striking than the limber pines.  I was prompted to check out the books and found a wildflower guide for a reasonable price.  I was disappointed to find that none of the plants of the National Monument were in it.  The clerk must have been have read my mind, since she slipped a very well done little brochure identifying all the specialized plants of Craters of the Moon into the front of the book, and I had what I needed.  Closer examination of the wildflower book revealed that it only listed three penstemon species.  It was not the bargain that I thought it was.

The cinders are like bits of creosote in appearance and their light weight. As a growing media, they give new meaning to the term "well drained".  The most prevalent species, by far, is dwarf buckwheat, Eriogonum ovalifolium.  At first glance, it appears to be the only thing that is growing in the finest grade of cinders.  Remarkably, they are evenly spaced due to the fact that they require a threshold volume of soil to provide the moisture needed for them grow.  Each plant occupies its own needed volume of soil, and new plants cannot get established in between existing ones because of the lack of available moisture.

The flowers are lovely, and show brightly against the gray black of their surroundings.  It's as if a bit of the bright desert sun was distilled and placed atop the stems.

The foliage seems almost white against the cinders.  The fine, tight tomentum on the leaves undoubtedly helps to preserve every water molecule that the plant is able to capture in this harsh environment.

The flowers are even attractive as they begin to fade, turning a nice shade of blush pink. The papery calyces of the individual flowers are retained.

Dusty maiden, Chaenactis douglasii, is another very cool plant.  In this other-worldly environment, they look like some alien life form derived from a starfish and an Achillea.  It wasn't in bloom, and it didn't need to be as far as I was concerned, since it is lovely in leaf.  The pine needles give you a good idea of the tiny rosettes of this biennial.

I wonder if these plants might hold the key to colonizing harsh places like Mars.  Even if we never colonize other planets, we should keep them here on earth and tout them as the ultimate container garden plant for people who live in cold desert areas and never remember to water.

Craters of the Moon Limber Pine

The canyons of central Idaho open up to the Snake River Plain, which is really nothing more than the giant flattened burn scar that tracks the hot spot that is now the Yellowstone Caldera as the North American tectonic plate was drug over it.  We visited Craters of the Moon National Monument, and in my opinion, it is superior to Yellowstone National Park in some respects.  It's less crowded, probably because it is very remote, and far off the beaten path.  And there are a lot of really cool plants in a small area that are adapted to the harsh conditions.

The first plant I noticed were the limber pines. I have a reverence for pines, I suppose, because they sustained my family, all of which were involved in the timber industry in the Black Hills. Pinus flexilis is aptly named.  You can indeed tie slip knots in the branches without breaking them. I've experimented with this and interestingly, the slip knot did not graft itself into place.  Somehow the branch knew it was tied and died back to the next living branch below the knot. The flexible branches are an adaptation to the windy environments where it grows, usually where few other trees can make a go of it.