In Plain Sight
In
Plain Sight
A few years ago, I was walking through the woods
surrounding our monastery with a guest who happened to be a naturalist. He was
giving me a lesson in identifying overlooked species that work in woodland
gardens. One tree that I had never noticed is called Striped Maple or Moosewood. It is a relatively small tree, but
interesting in many respects. Its bark is pale green with yellow stripes. The
leaves resemble a duck’s foot, rather than a typical maple leaf, and they turn
from lime green to light yellow in the fall. When the leaves emerge in spring,
they have a scarlet bud scale that is visible from quite a distance.
After becoming familiar with this tree, I searched
the woods for a small one to transplant. Unfortunately, most of the smaller
ones had been food for the browsing deer, and I couldn’t find a good specimen
to move, and I went on to other pursuits.
The following spring, I was in a lower section of
our garden where it was quite wet, when all of a sudden I stepped into a sink
hole and immediately was in over my boots and still sinking. I called for help
several times, but no one heard me. As I sunk further into the muck, visions of
movies I had seen as a kid flashed through my mind – men trapped in quicksand
slowly disappearing till they were gone. I thought of someone finally looking
for me and finding only my floating hat to mark the spot of my demise.
Well, at about knee high, I stopped sinking and the
next thing to do was to try to extricate myself, as the cavalry was clearly not
coming to the rescue. As I looked around to figure out the next thing to do, lo
and behold to my left was not one, but a whole grove of striped maple! With
some effort, I was able to reach some surrounding ground with some brush that
was stable and succeeding in pulling myself out of the hole. After more than a
few sighs of relief, I explored the maples. As it was spring, they were all
decorated with their scarlet bud scales. Then I remembered that I was told that
they also thrive in moist ground as well as in the woods.
As I filled the hole with rocks and some gravel, I
said a quiet “Thank you” for allowing me to see what was hidden in plain sight,
even though it took a mini adventure to come to my senses!
