HR and I drove to our favorite Savannah library this morn to return a book we had just finished. [Boys Come First, our 161st (!) book we have read together.]
Walking out of the Bull Street Library, I saw this incredible old Live Oak …
It rained yesterday, so the resurrection fern was in proud display.
Walk closer with me.
If it doesn’t rain anymore, in a couple of days, the resurrection fern will dry up, be dark brown, and look dead.
Until the next rain.
On our Saturday morning walk, across the street from us here in Historic District Savannah, we came across resurrection fern bursting forth from … bricks.
Do you know about resurrection fern?
From Southern Living magazine …
The fern looks dead when it’s dry, but when it rains, it becomes beautifully green. Even from bricks.
Here’s resurrection fern this evening from outside our front door, looking up.
We could probably learn a thing or two from resurrection fern.
Introducing a new blog category which pauses for a moment to take a quick look at what is love-worthy about my (and maybe your) current location.
I love getting up in the morning, opening the blinds and looking out our second-story bedroom window at the old Savannah street below. Robert and I live in the Trustees Garden district, one of Savannah’s oldest neighborhoods …
Good morning! Looky there, just outside my window! It’s my old friend, 39. The 39 East Broad Street Live Oak! Isn’t he something?!
Wait, what do you mean he looks kind of past his prime? That he’s seen his better days? That’s he’s all gray-brown? That he seems shriveled? (Let me get this straight, are you talking about the tree or me?)
Well hold on. First of all, he’s over a hundred years old. Are you? Give him a break. Second, he’s taken his share of knocks and blows. Just a few years ago, a tractor-trailer came barreling down East Broad and slammed into 39, damaging one of his larger branches (look to the left in the first photo), requiring the city to amputate. I cried a bit. It forever altered my morning view.
But I adjusted. And grew to love 39 even more.
A quick question: Do you know about the resurrection fern? No?
Well, “Pleopeltis polypodioides, also known as the resurrection fern, is a species of creeping, coarse-textured fern native to the Americas and Africa.” Wikipedia
“This remarkable plant can lose about 75 percent of its water content during a typical dry period and possibly up to 97 percent in an extreme drought. During this time, it shrivels up to a grayish brown clump of leaves. When it is exposed to water again, it will ‘come back to life’ and look green and healthy. The plant
gets its name from this supposed ‘resurrection’ but it never actually dies during the process.”
Here’s what I saw another morn, after a little rain during the night …
Life. Green life.
And 39 shouldered, supported that life. Even (especially?) when all seemed dead.
Looks can definitely be deceiving. What seems past its prime may not be. Who gets to define “prime” anyway?
NealEnJoy 