This obviously a Fatima not in her natural habitat. I had not been to the Guilford woods in a long time. There was a small detail that I had forgotten, it’s freaking muddy! The clothes worn were not appropriate for the weather at the time. It was very uncomfortable. It reminds me of the year we had several bad storms, I forgot what year. I went for a jog and noticed so many trees had fallen and debris. I had no clue why. Until my mom called and informed me that there was literally a hurricane that had brushed the coast and the effects were felt almost statewide. I had slept through the entire storm. I literally sleep through anything. I had to really train myself to not sleep through my alarms. Even now I still do it. Anyway, there was not much we saw that day. After heavy rainfall the past couple days it was not the best place to stroll around. It is so interesting seeing the remains of an old trail or projects that were done in the woods. The place we were walking led to a bridge that has old stepping stones in front of it. Last time I went there the bridge was broken. It has been repaired though. The other side of the bridge was still a lot muddier than where we had been walking. I have to restate the fact I was not ready for the mud that day. However, it was not all bad. Along our very short way I found a tiny thin tree still attempting to grow.
It used other trees around it as support. It was a rather unique tree. I could not tell you what type of tree it was. So please refer to the picture above. This reminded me of the time we talked about species interaction in a class once. I can’t remember when exactly but I remember talking about competition, parasitism, commensalism and mutualism. Competition is when two or more species are battling for the energy or food source, which makes both negatively affected. Parasitism is similar but one species is at a disadvantage while the other is benefitting. Commensalism is when one species is benefitting from another but the one is unaffected. Mutualism is when both species are benefiting from the interaction. I say all this to say that even if I do not know close to nothing about nature, I know this one thing about species interaction. Whenever I study the trees or plants, this is kind of what I think about. It’s about the only thing I remember from that class. I think I mainly remember because humans were categorized as parasites in the food web. Which I could not agree more with. You have to wonder what the trees would say if they could talk. Just imagining all the stories they would tell. That’s why it’s so sad when trees are torn down. They have hundreds of years of history.
