Plant Life Magic

Plant life is on this earth for one reason and one reason only - to reproduce its species. This includes vegetables and fruit, of course.
The magic comes in many different forms and they all create a feeling of wonderment every time I consider it.
Some species of eucalyptus (gums), pinus (pines) and acacia (wattles) seasonally drop or broadcast their seeds over a wide area by "exploding" their seed cases. Out of the thousands of seeds that are ejected from a tree, only a handful will survive to sprout and regenerate the species. The seeds of eucalyptus and acacia may lay dormant in the ground for years waiting for the right conditions to suit their challenge for life. In these cases the seeds need fire for them to burst into life and the Australian bush is ideal for this as bush fires are a natural phenomenon, or sometimes, not so natural when they are caused by arsonists.
The fire awakens the seed and in a few weeks after the fire, little green shoots begin to appear from the ashes and then threats to the next stage of survival begins - destruction by human or animal intervention. After bush fires, humans will clear the burnt areas if the fire was in farmland or grazing land and they will wipe out the native flora and clear the fire debris to make way for more arable land.
This, of course, destroys the young plants struggling for survival, but Nature has allowed for this. Not all the seeds will germinate at once and over time, these resilient little seeds will germinate safely and become the majestic gum and wattle trees we all admire.
Not all seeds are tiny. Coconuts turn up everywhere near the tropics. While I was at sea around South East Asia I saw, on numerous occasions, coconut palms of every size from just sprouted nuts to fully grown ones floating in the ocean. While I was on lookout off Vietnam I actually reported a submarine periscope which turned out to be a coconut palm floating merrily along looking for somewhere to take root. This is far from rare at sea in the tropics and one sighting of what was first thought to be more palms did turn out to be submarines!! As far as I know, the nationality of those subs who stalked us all the time we were in Vietnam waters has never been established, except that they WERE NOT FRIENDLIES!!!!!

In my garden, it never ceases to amaze me that such large and delicious vegetables and fruit can be grown from such small seeds. One little seed  will produce a plant which, if tended properly, will produce several kilos of rich, red and juicy tomatoes. And any other vegetable, or fruit for that matter, that grows above ground, will produce more and more the more you pick them. The vegetable grows its babies to produce seed, not to feed us (that is just a lucky by-product for us), so if you pick the mature ones, the plant realises that it has lost that crop of potential seeds and will produce more until, at the last, the plant is too old and tired, and dies.

ISN'T MOTHER NATURE WONDERFUL?????