Why does it start with a leaf?

A monarch caterpillar feeds on the leaf of a blooming common milkweed plant, Asclepias syriaca.

If I’m honest, it starts with the Big Bang. Or maybe the Sun. But let’s not get bogged down in technicalities. It Starts With a Leaf because a leaf is a miracle of autotrophy, turning energy into matter all on its own. It’s not quite making something out of nothing, but it sure seems that way! Within the cells of every leaf are incredible little structures called chloroplasts that do the work of photosynthesis. They take sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water, and turn them into carbohydrates (sugar), oxygen, and water. They capture carbon from the air and turn it into plant matter.

Leaves are the engines of life on Earth. Leaves grow trees, grasses, and seaweed. Then other organisms eat the leaves, seeds, fruits, roots, and shoots. Plants feed insects and other animals. Insects that eat leaves feed mammals and birds. All of those things feed humans. Also very importantly, leaves produce oxygen that is breathed by mammals, including you and me.

This is simplified, but I don’t think a lot of people today spend much time considering the importance of leaves and plants to our very existence.

Every breath you take fills your lungs with oxygen that powers your own metabolism and your ability to continue living. That oxygen comes from plants photosynthesizing.

So, It Starts With a Leaf.

I love plants. I think they are wondrous and beautiful and intensely interesting in their variety. There are so many different species of plants expressing so many different evolutionary strategies. How can a giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), the most massive tree on Earth, reproduce from a seed about the size of a rolled oat flake? How can plants produce flowers in every color from ROY to G to BIV? How can bamboo grow 1.5 inches per hour? Such facts blow me away.

Many of us suffer from plant blindness, the condition where we see green growing things as simply “plants” or “bushes” or “greenery”, with no awareness of what kinds of plants they are or how they interact with other parts of the food web. I’m here to help combat plant blindness, and to increase appreciation for plants and all of the connections they share with every element of life on Earth.

This Substack might wander around and zoom in and out from a single plant species to a whole garden or forest or plant-based product. I might also write about other things I think are interesting, like travel, food, contemplative thought, and such. Let’s find out!