I’m obsessed with the tiny plants that grow in sidewalk cracks. This topic never became my main research area, but I’ve done a few projects here and there. While I was participating in an urban plant project in a suburb west of Tokyo, I learned that a Japanese scientist Hirokazu Tsukaya (塚谷裕一) had written an entire book documenting the flora of cracks (in pavements, walls, sidewalks…). “The World of Crack Plants” is my inelegant translation of the title (with jacket subtitle: “Tiny Favourites of the Street”). Each page has a photo of a different species of plant, in its improbable location: a sidewalk crack, a stone wall, the edge of a pavement curb. 

Excerpt from スキマの植物の世界 (“The World of Crack Plants”) by Hirokazu Tsukaya (塚谷裕一).

The author is a plant scientist with expertise in gene expression in plant development (laboratory stuff for sure) but not an ecologist, so rather than a scientific document, this book is really a love letter to the plants that grow underfoot. Crack plants are usually unrecognized and ignored, persisting in what seems to be an unforgiving environment. Despite years of study, my Japanese is not up to the task of reading this wonderful book^[1], but its mere existence profoundly cheers my soul.

Seeing this book on my shelf at this time of year and during a very snowy Halifax winter reminds me of the importance of books to my personal natural history and botany journey. Winter is long here^[2] and reading about plants seems to help me get through to the next growing season. I enjoy being outside in winter, but even more than that I like hibernating with a good book (or five). The first books I read obsessively^[3] were the Golden Guides: pocket-sized catalogues of groups of organisms (“Fishes”) or a kind of ecosystem (“The Seashore”), with colour illustrations. These were not kids’ books per se but each was a combination of concise reference book and field guide in one.  It’s fitting that coastal wetlands are now the bread and butter of my employment. I wore out my copies of “Fishes” and “The Seashore”, and somehow learned of the existence of other titles in the series that were not available in our local bookshop. This led to a parent ordering the coveted “Pond Life” for me. We had a pond just outside our front window and poking around streams and puddles was a favourite pastime in those days. 

My copy of Pond Life, by George K. Reid, 1967. Golden Press, New York

I imagine it took 6–8 weeks for “Pond Life” to arrive at the bookshop. For a 6-year old, this was an eternity. I even dreamed of finally receiving the book and reading it, but the dream was disconcerting, as when I finally opened the book it showed starfish and other marine creatures that should not have been in ponds. When the book finally arrived, it was everything I’d hoped for, but did not mention starfish. But there was a freshwater jellyfish! 

Freshwater jellyfish! From Pond Life, by George K. Reid, 1967, Golden Press, New York. 

In addition to nature or ecology themed non-fiction of various kinds, winter is a great time to read field guides and even to review plant lists (I love lists!). I assume this is an equivalent impulse experienced by gardeners who obsessively read seed catalogs in winter. Usually, I read about a rare plant long before I ever encounter it in person, so finally seeing the plant is often a moment of revelation: “so that’s what it actually looks like!”.  This also goes back to “Pond Life” for me. When I saw a Giant Water Bug in the flesh (in an urban pond), after having the Golden Guide painting of the species burned into my brain for months, it was mind blowing! (it was also substantially larger than the image in the book; Whirligig beetles, water striders and other pond insects are very interesting, but mainly small…). Since then, I’ve relished the thrill of connecting a previously abstract part of my experience with something real and live. My process of staying current with botany and other aspects of natural history involves a dialectic between the books (and lists) and the real world. 

The role of books in my own story is very important, and I want to recognize the value of books for learning natural history, for celebrating local places and for giving us an activity while we are waiting for spring (and recovering from shovelling snow!). While “outsider” is an important concept for this blog, access to the outside is not universal. I think it’s important to recognize that there are many entry points to the body of knowledge that I shorthand with the umbrella term “natural history”. Books can connect us with the living world of ecosystems during times when we cannot go out and also to places we may never visit. 

I’d love to hear about your favourite winter natural history reading in the comments, and I will return to the topic of “crack plants” before too long. 

---

^[1] Of course, I have a phone app that uses the camera to instantly suggest translations of Japanese text. This is great for random bits of text, but it’s a really awkward way to read an entire book.

^[2] Really, it’s the shoulder seasons that I find the most challenging in Halifax (e.g. “brown winter” that spans March to May…our trees are not fully leafed out until June 1! [red oak is the latest of our native trees])

^[3] Since my parents are among the main readers of this blog, they will likely remember I was also obsessed with reading catalogues: Canadian Tire and especially my Grandad’s JC Whitney & Co. auto parts catalogue (not even in colour but newsprint with thousands of line drawings of auto parts). Looks like the Golden Guides won out in the end, as I no longer have even a vestigial interest in car parts.