Blooming in the Dark
Bloom, definition — a state or time of beauty, freshness, and vigor
Kendrick Lamar never got an answer to a question he previously posed to his fans:
If a flower bloomed in the dark would you trust it?
Our metaphorical choice of words makes us prefer light over darkness. The Sith belong to the dark side of the Force. We want the light. If you’re smart, you’re bright. If you’re stupid, you’re dull.
Anything that blooms in the dark is shady, forgive the pun. If you get to a top position by underhand means, you’re questionable at best. Matters that happen behind closed doors can escape the scathing glare of light.
So, would you trust a flower that bloomed in the dark?
After my brief litany, you shouldn’t. But, morality is a matter of taste. It depends on your philosophy. If you were born into Confucian principles and grew to become a lawyer, you would defend your family no matter what. If you were born into classical Western philosophy, you would be conflicted between what the law says and what your heart tugs.
Mother nature allows for all these internal conflicts to happen. She can be harsh. She can also be forgiving. I know of parents who permit some cheekiness and even encourage it. I would be one of those parents.
Somewhere in the dark, are flowers that thrive off this mischief.
Why trust a cheat?
Would we call them cheats?
Many do.
Flowers are the physical evidence of a plant’s maturity. It shows that they are ready for reproduction. You don’t get flowers if you’re not healthy.
Flowers are like weeds with an advertising budget. The insect-pollinating ones at least. And a tight budget can work wonders.
Crafting the most riveting flower is the first goal. Insects can be about their business when they spot an irresistible work of art. The second one is to ensure it is distinct. If flowers were all the same, the budget would be for nothing.
Every flower from every flower-producing plant species is different. With different natural uniforms, they don’t fit into the same school. At this point, they are not misfits yet by most common standards.
What makes them different is the appeal. Why should you be that brightly coloured when the rest of the plant is lackluster? They stand out from the other parts. They don’t fit in. They are misfits.
Misfits can be achievers. Some of the best achievers we know are misfits. But like the flowers, they also need the dull green parts.
The commonest type of plants need the sun to manufacture their food. They need the green component of leaves to harness sunlight into complex sugars through photosynthesis. The flowers ensure longevity. Good allocation of labour. The green stems and leaves facilitate it. The sun promotes the entire venture.
Darkness would not help a plant. It would not get food. Still, this unique set of plants has some of the brightest flowers you will ever encounter. Flowers in the light could be debatable as misfits. But those that bloom in the dark are just plainly showing off. How they do it, according to many people, is through cheating.
Cheating happens underground. They get fed by fungi. The typical relationship between plants and fungi is transactional — plants give the fungi starch and fungi give the plants essential minerals. Like the sitting in Oprah’s show, nobody leaves empty-handed. Everyone benefits.
These plants that bloom in the dark don’t do any of that. They only take but don’t give back. They lack chlorophyll. So what they receive from fungi is both starch and minerals.
Flowers, remember, are typically weeds with an advertising budget. For these small groups, they use every income they get. They can be the most beautiful plants, but people still don’t accord them the love they give to other flowers such as roses and orchids.
One of the most striking flowers is known as the snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea) stands as a red, towering flame in the dark crevices of coniferous, American forests. As they take for the stars, they look like the red type of folded pieces of dried mangoes, achari. Once matured, they open their flowers. Everything about them is crimson red.
The other plant is the Voyria. They are like clovers, only that their petal numbers are not limited to four. They are located in the Americas and West Africa in the dark recesses of the forests. Their roots are nested in a tiny, thick batch of roots. Fungal roots. When you snap their stems, you don’t get the usual features we see in other plants — the xylem and phloem. Rather you see shuttling fibres of mycelium — the network of fungal threads.
The most striking yet abominably named is the phantom orchid (Cephalanthera austiniae). It looks like an anaemic plant, marble white like a thriving vampire from the Twilight series. It is a species under threat due to the climatic changes experienced in the north, unlike the ghost plants that are just as white if not glossier but thrive in different continents. They come out of the soil like white pipes intent on watering themselves since their flowers point downwards.
All these are examples of flowers that grow different shades of conspicuous colours and tend to survive in the dark. Experiments with radioactive carbon show the shuttling of carbon from the plants through the underground root systems to these plants. They survive through the underground track system provided by fungi.
So, are they cheats?
Are they cheats?
Here’s what John Muir had this to say about the snow plant Sarcodes sanguinea:
Nevertheless, it is a singularly cold and unsympathetic plant. Everybody admires it as a wonderful curiosity, but nobody loves it as lilies, violets, roses, daisies are loved. Without fragrance, it stands beneath the pines and firs lonely and silent, as if unacquainted with any other plant in the world; never moving in the wildest storms; rigid as if lifeless, though covered with beautiful rosy flowers.
Colour is their working feature. Insect-pollinated flowers don’t just have colour as their alluring repertoire. They can use scent too. Insects are not the only ones, thus, attracted to these plants. So too are birds and other moving creatures besides ourselves, humans.
Devoid of the other traits of beautiful flowers, they are indeed misfits. They do what all organisms do to survive. All organisms struggle to avoid annihilation. These ones tapped into an evolutionarily preserved relationship, arguably, for a reason.
They have to be brightly coloured if they are to stand out in the dark. It is an amazing view to watch the hummingbird hurtle from one flower to another of the snow plant, sucking nectar. These supposed cheats bring life to the dark side of the forest.
Every other component struggles to go to the light. Climbers in the tropical forests, the towering trees forming the thick canopies, and flowers of all stripes strive for the light. Our supposed cheats reverse the trend. They divert life to the abandoned edges of the forest. The diversity is therefore spread to all parts. They may be seen to only take from the fungi, but they are responsible for the life that continues to pulse in the dark.
Not everything that continues in darkness is bad after all. These unique bands of flowers, definitely misfits, have flipped the game as misfits do. Getting the full story grants one some degree of grace besides just calling someone a cheat. The radiant red flame of the snow plant should be a reminder of the need for us to be generous in our understanding of misfits. In this case, they bring life where it otherwise would have been deficient.
What I’m trying to say is…
When Snow White sang, she could attract birds and flowers would open to her nature-loving tunes whenever she got the spark to sing.
Flowers, bees, and birds can be the signal we can use to grant these flowers the grace they deserve. They might not be giving anything back to the fungi, but plenty of trees that already do that. Another small plant’s contribution to the fungal network would be like a drop in the ocean.
Their existence, on the other hand, does more than they receive. It enhances the robustness of life.
Since they cannot defend themselves, I’ll write for these misfits.
This song inspired some of the lines used in this article. Source — YouTube