I went outside the other day in a cold wind looking for
fairy bouquets. As I walked around, I found one – the wildflower filaree. But
the cold wind caused my nose to run. When I came back in, I became curious
about why this happened, so I spent some time on the Internet. What I found,
amazed me.
Slime is the glue that holds the biosphere together. An
immense variety of long molecules are collectively called “slime.” Slime
molecules are carbohydrates with a negative charge. Those carbohydrates join
together to form chains which tie molecules together. The more numerous the
links, the more syrupy the slime. The molecules in the chains of slime are mostly
water, so a little bit of the carbohydrates goes a long way.
In us slime forms a veneer covering the surface of the
digestive, respiratory, urinary, and other tracts. It harbors antibodies and
presents a barrier to infectious microbes. If the stomach were not lined with
slime, the acid within would eat away the stomach wall. Slime is indispensable,
even to a single cell. Each cell is covered with slime. In a zygote, slime
triggers cell diversification – the biochemical machinery of a cell changes
when its slime touches the slime of another cell.
People are revolted by slime. A person that is “a slimy
&%#*” is a lowdown good for nothing. Slime is a good thing. Fish and
amphibians are slimy, but the slime protects them. Snot is slimy. (Someone that
is bratty and talks back to others is labeled snotty.) Snot more often than not
protects us from disease, washing out airborne bacterial diseases unless an
infection sets in, and then the slime in snot breeds the bacteria.
Mollusks farm their
slime. The trail of slime left- behind as they move grows microbes that
photosynthesize into a luxuriant garden that the animal harvests as it returns.
Since cryptogamic soil is an important feature in arid landscapes, this poses
the question about what role our tiny native snails (that live in ant nests)
play in creating the cryptogamic soils. (Go to our website and type in
cryptogamic soils in the website search engine to learn more about cryptogamic
soils.)
Slime unites bacteria. Bacteria never work alone --- they
collaborate. Bacteria are not restricted to passing their DNA only to their
offspring. They can give it to their neighbors, and often do so in slime. Some
scientists say that the entire bacterial community can be considered one
earth-embracing organism, continuously reorganizing itself, adapting to the
ever-changing conditions of the biosphere. Bacteria cleanse the biosphere and
keep it fit for life, transforming carbon dioxide, oxygen, methane, hydrogen
sulfide, and even heavy metals and petroleum.
Bacteria are everywhere. They pervade our soils and
mudflats, cover deserts and dunes, helping capture and retain water. When soils
are examined with an electron microscope, the soil is revealed to be connected
by microbial mats of bacteria, unified by slime.
Some minerals (processed by bacteria) make it to the ocean
where they become either necessities for organisms or collect in sediment. One
organism in the sea is Emiliana, a single cell algae that biochemically
envelops itself with calcite crystals (not normal rectangular calcite crystals,
but glittering wheels of calcite.) Guess what holds the calcite wheels together
– Slime!
What rock is mostly calcite? Limestone. Was limestone
present on the earth when it formed? No! Limestone is a rock created by life.
Emiliana can reproduce every two hours. The hotter it is, the faster it
reproduces. Sometimes there are blooms of Emiliana. Satellite
photographs sometimes reveal thousands of square miles of ocean slowly becoming
whitish. Emiliana also die quickly, so tons of calcium carbonate go
filtering down to the ocean floor.
Through plate tectonics this calcium carbonate is sucked
into the earth’s interior. The calcium-enriched lava, when ejected in
eruptions, blows the carbon dioxide into the air. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse
gas. In the Cretaceous period carbon dioxide built up until there was ten times
as much in the atmosphere as there is now. Forests grew in Antarctica and there
were no glaciers anywhere in the world.
But remember the Emiliana blooms covering large areas
of the ocean? It is theorized that those patches grew and grew until they began
reflecting solar radiation back through the surface water, increasing
evaporation and producing glaring white clouds (shielding, cooling clouds)
tempering the temperatures of the Cretaceous period. Maybe Emiliana will
temper man-caused global warming (providing slime does its work!)
Caliche is another rock that is continually being created.
When rain percolates through arid soils, the calcium carbonates in the soil are
collected together and unified by slime, and slowly harden over time when the
soils dry out again. The “Cap” of the Caprock of the Llano Estacado was created
by slime, too.
As my nose dried up in the warm building, I remembered that several years ago I had decided to research
filaree. In programs on wildflowers I tell folks that it came with the churro
sheep brought by Don Juan de Onate in 1598 when the Spanish colonized New
Northern New Mexico. It may have come to the Llano Estacado even earlier, for
Francisco Coronado had sheep with him as he looked for the Seven Cities of
Cibola. The little curly haired seeds were trapped in the fleece of the sheep.
As I checked my notes, I found I had forgotten that earlier I had learned that
the name originated in Morocco. The Moors that conquered Spain gave it the name
al feria, and alferillo is the Spanish name. The plant came to Spain with the
Moors, probably in the hair of sheep, too. Filaree is the English twist to the
common name.
Filaree is just one of the fairy bouquets of spring. I doubt
that I will find Draba this year, a native “belly flower” only two to four
inches tall that appears after wet winters with plenty of snow. A person has to
lie on their belly to truly admire the fairy bouquets! I probably will find some “quail pea,”
another tiny native fairy bouquet of spring. A little bit later, I should also
find dwarf verbena in clay soils, such as that in the playa here at Sibley.
This spring, I have already seen another fairy bouquet in the yards in town –
the “weed” henbit, which is another European introduction that probably did
come in hay to the New World.
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