Learning Something New

Marcescence

It’s kind of a fun word to say: mahr ses ense 

Marcescence: The quality of being marcescent, and marcescent means withering, but not falling off.  It’s a biology–botany, I suppose–word, and it’s usually used to describe deciduous trees that don’t lose their leaves until late in the winter, oftentimes not until the beginning of spring.

The leaf withers and turns brown, but doesn’t fall off the tree. Why doesn’t it? Because the very base of the leaf’s stem–the petiole–doesn’t actually die when the rest of the leaf does. I learned that just two days ago.

Over the last few days, I attended an environmental education conference in my home state of Alabama.  It was a gathering of formal (classroom) and informal (camps, science centers, etc) educators who share a passion for teaching others about the natural world around them.  There’s something wonderful about being with one’s tribe, and doing so while meandering down a trail through the woods makes it even better.  

Find a tribe–more than one is even better–and let yourself grow.