Crevice Plants
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This series recommends "plant observation walks" for rehabilitation and exercise.
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Hot days are still continuing, but how is everyone doing?
During the COVID-19 pandemic,
I saw a "block with weeds growing in it"
being sold as a product.
It was a block of something like concrete or brick with cracks and crevices, and soil and weed seeds were put into those gaps so that weeds would grow out of the cracks.
I think such things sold well precisely because people were told to "stay home" and were cut off from the outside world.
As far as I have searched, I cannot find such products currently.
However, weed seeds are being bought and sold, and large quantities of ivy and pinecones are also being traded online for making wreaths.
If there is demand for anything, even weeds can become a business.
Lacking business acumen, I watch this and think it's amazing.
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Now, about crevice plants, have you ever seen grass growing from gaps or cracks on the side of the road?
Sometimes, surprisingly beautiful flowers bloom in the gaps of paved roads.
For example, violets.
Sometimes even more vibrant ones bloom.
Including pansies and violas, members of the violet family have the property of having their seeds carried by ants. The insect, ants.
Seeds of the violet family have substances that ants like attached to them, and they try to carry them to their nests.
As a result, the seeds are carried quite far by the ants, and while the substances the ants like are eaten, the violet seeds sprout from the narrow gaps where the ants carried them.
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As with the violet family, to get into a crevice, you need to be a small seed.
Because of that, members of the grass family often grow in crevices.
Since goosegrass and large crabgrass drop fine seeds, they often grow from gaps in the road.
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Also, plants that fly with fluff can often be found growing from gaps in the road.
Plants like sow thistles or bull thistles fly their seeds with fluff, so if they land in a gap, they will grow from there.
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Trees like hackberries and Japanese mallotus also grow from gaps in the road. I have even seen a Japanese cypress growing from a crack in the road.
It is said that the name "hackberry" (enoki) might come from "feeding tree" (esa-no-ki) because birds love to eat them, so if a bird carries them to a gap, they will grow there.
The Japanese mallotus is also a plant that produces seeds easily, so it is a tree that often finds its way into gaps.
If it were just grass, it would be one thing, but when it becomes a tree, it has to be cut down, so gap plants also become a source of headaches for land and road managers, you know.😅
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Gap plants are sometimes seen as having grit, but if they can get into a gap, it's a place where other rivals have a hard time entering.
Also, ground covered by concrete or human structures doesn't get direct sunlight, so moisture remains in the soil more easily.
In that sense, you could also see it as them securing a location that is advantageous to themselves.
In any case, there is no doubt that gap plants are tough.
Reference
Hirokazu Tsukaya, "Illustrated Guide to Gap Plants," Chuko Shinsho
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