Jaidan Brass - Control Burn (12/04)

       "Control Burn" is a poem within Gary Snyder's Turtle Island on page 19. It starts with how Native Americans knowingly set some of the lands there on fire every year to clear out some bushes and grasses and how there was never enough fuel to burn down the slower-growing plants such as trees. The poem introduced how Manzanita scrub, along with other logging fuel, can cause this destructive fire. However, this more destructive fire will also bring along the natural laws of nature with a new, cleared land, and Snyder states here that it will once again belong to the Native Americans. I chose to comment on this poem specifically because in the second to last stanza, it mentions that Manzanita seeds need fire or to be eaten by a bear to open. I'm currently in BIOL 213 and 213L, which is half Botany and half Zoology. A part of our final project in the lab is based on communicating the information you gathered on your plant species' germination. We all chose Prairie species flowers. My group's was the Dalea Purpurea, aka the Purple Prairie Clover. One of the articles my group ran into was about how they were testing seed germination under conditions seen within fires--both smoke and heat. The results of the article showed that some plants needed these fires to break seed dormancy and be allowed to germinate. Since seed dormancy is used to make sure the plant grows at an optimal time or conditions, I feel like the fact that plants might know that the newly fire-cleared areas are ready to take advantage of.

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