Since I go to NC State, I've basically had my DNA reprogrammed to just hate UNC Chapel Hill. I hate their football program, their basketball program, their dining halls, their students... literally anything about them. Except maybe the few friends I have that made the poor decision of going to a school who uses a foot as a portion of their brand identity (shoutout Michael and Brendan). But otherwise, you name it, just by pure principle, nothing else matters except for the fact that I got WOLFPACK BLOOD, BABY. My roommate actually cheers for UNC though and it drives me bananas -- but that's besides the point. Today I get to tell a story that ends with a BIG, FAT, ROAST directed at UNC, and it's plant related. (:
I'll start with the topic of this post, which is roundabout on monocultures. You could probably guess what they are just based on the word structure. The stem mono- meaning one, and the stem -culture meaning... well, culture. One culture. A monoculture is a mass planting of one, single kind of plant. Monocultures can be man made, like if you decide to mass plant petunias, and only petunias, in your garden; or for farming purposes, like a field of corn or carrots or something. Monocultures can also just be a product of the environment. Maybe only one kind of plant can grow in one area, so for miles and miles you just see one kind of cactus or one kind of oak tree. Sometimes, a monoculture is the only place those plants can grow. Like, for example, the Bristlecone Pine.
A Bristlecone pine is a gnarly looking tree that I actually think is really beautiful. I think its trunk is so cool, it's got a lot of color and dimension and it grows in such a funky way. But, actually, it doesn't just grow in a funky way, it actually has a very specific reason for why it grows so all over the place. Pinus longaeva, specifically, lets parts of the plant die so that the whole can live. Its a function of vegetative growth and reapportioning sugar so that the plant can grow and thrive. For this reason, some of these bristlecone pines are the oldest living plants in the world. Which is crazy!!
This species of bristlecone pines is insanely hard to grow, and as a result grows in very few places all over the world. The biggest grove of these pines is in the White Mountains in Nevada -- and it's a monoculture, meaning nothing but these giants grow here. The soil on these mountains is... bad. It's hardly even soil and more just, rock -- limestone, to be specific. For some reason, these pines thrive in these conditions, and do really terrible in more 'livable' environments! Therefore, they pretty much only grow on these mountains. Kinda whack.
Take a guess at how old these trees are though -- remember, they are the oldest (known) living species in the world. Would you guess over 5000 years old? Because I sure wouldn't, but that's how old the oldest living plant is! And it's a bristlecone pine!! The average is probably a little lower than 5000, of course, but the oldest living bristlecone pine (and plant, ever!) is 5,068 years.
Here's where we get to laugh at UNC.
Before the current oldest living plant was discovered in 2012, there was a mishap. In 1964, UNC graduate student Donald Rusk Currey killed the oldest living plant ever -- a bristlecone pine. It was an accident, and he didn't realize how detrimental it was until he actually began to study the sample he took -- but boy oh boy was it bad.
Basically, Currey was off studying lord knows what off in the White Mountains of Nevada, and took a core sample of some random bristlecone pine. His corer got stuck and he was forced to call a park ranger, who ended up just cutting the tree down. Currey brought the sample back anyway for his study, and discovered soon that it was the oldest living plant in the world... or, it was. Big ouch, way to go UNC. This remained the oldest known living plant until 2012, when the current oldest living plant was discovered -- the bristlecone pine I mentioned earlier.
The tree that Currey killed was named the Prometheus tree, which speaks for man's desire for knowledge and the unintended negative consequences that often come about from this hunger. It's poetic, I guess, but I personally just like that it's another roast on UNC. If anything, though, the outrage that sparked in the scientific community after word got out that this tree was cut down helped establish this area as the Great Basin National Park to help protect the bristlecone pines.
So I guess UNC did some good. I guess.
Succulents are planttastic.