Who rules the Grassland?

Being nature enthusiasts and in a place far from home, the snowflake and six of her friends along with professor snowflake set out for a journey. A short one, but an exciting one none the less. Their story goes this way....

 We gathered things that we might need during the journey food, water, polythenes and bottles and many other knick-knacks. The two days spent in Dineshpur were spent being bundled up in layers of sweaters and socks as we feared that we might freeze up in the forest area we were planning to explore. We also were told that the lot of the forest area we were visiting was unexplored and the wild animals walk around without human interference. With enthusiasm and apprehensions in our heart and mind we set out. After a few kilometres we were told the road we took turn to leads to the forest area. The road was lined with colourful houses, some made of mud and wood and some with bricks. Every rock and bump our vehicle passed blew out a cloud of dust into the air. We were left wondering if we actually were on the right path. When the vehicle finally came to a halt, the sun was scorching over our head, wind doing nothing to alleviate the heat we were feeling. After having a light lunch, we ventured into the path leading to the forest. 

The path to the forest had a trail for pedestrians and two wheelers which set us off a bit. But when we realised that the forest inhabits the local tribal population, it made sense to us that they have access to the nearest town. Along the trail we saw several plants growing wild and also several that were part of plantation. On the either side of the trail, lining with were thin, brittle stemmed plants with bunch of orange-red flowers with lots of butterflies and bees hovering about giving out a feel of some exotic plants. But was it actually something exotic? No. It was the ever-invasive ever-present Lantana camara, slowly overpowering the plants present, welcoming us. One of us saw a very familiar looking plant that is widely used in the south Indian cuisine.  But there was no smell around the plant as we expected. Another among us plucked the leaf and crushed in between the heels of the palms, we could smell the subtle yet strong aroma of wild curry, so familiar, yet so different from the ones we use for day to day cooking. However, those Sagwan trees on the other side of the trail, used in furniture and the very commercial aspect of the tree that is planted here made all of us wonder if the forest is as untouched as we were told. 

Our fears were proving to be true as we ventured into what looked like Sagwan trees standing tall and erect like soldiers in a parade, almost equally spaced, without any other plants or trees other than a small wild curry plant near a Sagwan, or an odd patch of grass here and there. A passed down story from generations ago, say that during the British Raj, the Sagwan trees were of great importance for furniture, cut down extensively in this area of Tanda and transported till the local rivers by elephants and then via River Ganga to the nearest port and export to England. Realising the economic importance of Sagwan trees and depleting number of naturally grown trees in the region, they started a plantation in the area for a steady supply for the trees. Looking back, we see how a commercial need of a few, made a natural forest into a man-made plantation of a single tree with no room for anything else to grow, destroying the balance of the ecosystem. What is lost is lost forever, no matter what we try to replace it. Musings apart, the professor wondered aloud that how Curry plant is always within one to two feet of the Sagwan tree and if there is any association between them. The Snowflake hypothesised that there might be a territorial behaviour exhibited by either of the plants or they might be a part of a specific type of plant community like that of Terminalia species. With a question in our mind, we furthered into the ‘Plantation’ as no other word seems right in this point of time. There was a small pond in the end of a small patch of grazed land rich in aquatic plants. On the bank we found cattle bones which a brother snowflake wanted to collect and keep it as an exhibit and that he did. 

Collecting the remains of an unknown, long dead organism, ooh-ing and aah-ing about the colourful butterflies around Solanum members and other flowering plants in yet another trail, we moved towards a clearing that was green with grass, not as grazed as the previous patches of land, the field of grass surrounded by shrubs. The Snowflake slipped a bit when she stepped into the field and warned us all about the soil being sticky and slippery and for us to walk carefully.

We stood still for a few minutes to take in the beauty in the visible stillness of the field, buzzing of the insects, cool breeze soothing the sun tormented us people. The kids in our hearts could not help but kneel and touch the grass, feel them and pulled some out, guilty of charge.

Looking at them the naturalists in us jumped back in time and started going about trying to identify everything and anything present. And what fun it was to roam about, bend down, to point a magnifying glass at the leaf, stem, flower, insect etcetera, and etcetera. But in spite of all the tries we did, hypothetically standing on head to extract the name, nothing happened. Well, few we could identify, but mostly, eh! Ambika walked around teaching us about small things like how a plant with triangular stem and three leaves in a bunch which was identified as Cyperus rotundus by brother snowflake, makes it easy to be identified in the sea of grasses. All of us started roaming about collecting samples, every sample that we had not collected earlier, and all plants that looked unique, recurring in numbers.  

We saw not just the grass but also heaps of dung, most drying, with small fly like insects hopping around. Also we saw grasses poking out of the dried dung. What a strength that tiny, fragile looking grass has, to poke out of dung cake! Nature never ceases to astonish us! EVER! And is it an odd time to speak about the tiny geometric patterns made of silvery thin webs of tiny, creepy crawly spiders, hidden between the grass blades. And those flies flying around the flowers and cow dung, ants climbing up and down everything were something that was most fun to watch and also fascinating. There were innumerable number of tiny green grasshoppers hopping about, flittering from this leaf to that small plant and then to some other grass blade. And oh! there were a bit bigger grasshoppers in brown too. And then there were no less number of mushrooms that were growing happily on cattle dung. Kneeling in front of the dung cake that had mushrooms, we discussed about the types of fungi that grow on cattle dung which are called as Coprophilous fungi and the once we had studied in college. Well those we had studied were not these specimen, but who is to complaint? We got to see something so interesting. And then there were these tiny little frogs hopping and evading us when we tried to catch them. While we were hunting for frogs and grasshoppers, taking a closer look towards the ground, we found not just cattle dung, but we also found droppings that resembled that of rabbits and various footprints of cattle, big cats etc., and few eggs that looked like that of snake. Scary! They might have slithered where we stood, still hiding and slithering, silently judging us.

We then went about clicking pictures of the plants we unrooted, to try and identify later and pocketed them, bottled a spider here, a spider there. We all were worried about how the poor spider will survive with no air and poked holes on the cap. We tried to collect insects running after them with bottles in hand but managed to collect grasshoppers. We then caught many more tiny insects and in the fear that the grasshopper might harm them, we bottled them separately, but in our over enthusiasm and carelessness, we bottled a tiny frog in the same container, kept it aside and never looked at it again. We then walked around calling a big pile of dung as cape with mushroom toppings!!

Around this time that the snowflake found a small water body on the other end of the field where she found a wind dispersal mechanism in a tree on the pond and then three of us ie, Snowflake, her bestie flake and brother flake moved to another path, having an heated debate about a plant name (which by the way was never Datura and was Ipomea, as confirmed by the professor flake) and there it was! A small stream with wet land with Spirogyra, seen through the clear water flowing slowly, tiny tadpoles and fishes swimming about. On one side, we could see duckweeds floating happily on the water and to the far side were two trees framing the mouth of the stream, making it photo worthy. There were few tiny butterflies sitting on the wet mud on the bank of river, where the moisture in the water keeps the soil cool, as if they were tired of flying in the sun and resting their wings on the cool surface. What a beautiful scene they made, when we tried to click their pictures and they flew about! We all stood on a drooping tree bark for a picture. Who could resist it? A permanent and perfect memento to remember by this trip. And then brother flake, again packed up Spirogyra in bulk (that ended up giving rotting smell after a few hours), to “cultivate” in the lab. *facepalm*

On our way back out of sheer curiosity we checked temperatures of the atmosphere and soil and we found a solid 10 degrees of difference where soil stood on the lower end of the scale at 22 degree Celsius and then collected soil from 2 places. On our way back we were able to observe the field from a different angle and we could see that it had a slight slope towards the end where we were happily plucking out plants. Thinking back, it was also the area where the soil was saturated with water and the grass was interspersed with dicots, whereas the other side the grass were short and pale, soil dryer than the other side. The edge of the field was with shrubs, palms and creepers and the field with grass was on the way to the stream which had foot tracts of various animals. And the fact that the piles of dung and footprints were abundant became a major indicators pointing towards the grassland ecosystem. Definitely, nature has its own way to arrange components to complement and support each other.

On our way back, in the plantation of Sagwans were a group of reddish orange monkeys. We stood aside and watched their interaction. It seemed that two males were baring their teeth at each other, snarling while other monkeys were half way up the Sagwans, peeping out at the two fighters. Cautiously we moved away from the ‘fight arena’ and made it out of plantation. Once we were near the first pond and stood for a couple of photographs and then made back to our base in that dusty road, coughing, leaving a cloud of dust behind.

Once back, we had loads of questions, armful of samples that we could not wait to identify and examine. Armed with books and internet, we set were set for identification of the plants and insects.

Remember that bottle with insects and frog we mentioned before? Yes. When we pulled it out, nothing except frog was in it. That frog had swallowed every insect in that bottle. Double face palm moment! We guess this is the food chain we study right from our childhood! But we had limited timeframe before we had to move ahead and identify about 21 different plants and mushrooms, plus a few more insects (nothing but their generic names of course!), which we did. We then made soil solutions to observe what we could not see, the microorganisms. Unfortunately, in the soil solutions, nothing but a few fungal mycelium and spores came up, which we could not even identify. Not even the famed Mycorrhizal fungi that always associates with grasses, no bacteria, not any small animals. But we also scraped the outer surface of roots and voila! There was a filamentous algae and Mucorales fungi associated with the root! We were so happy to see them! We then hypothesised that microorganisms might have been scarce in the soil due to the high saturation of soil, clay soil with less aeration, and slight alkalinity coupled with the low temperature made it inhabitable for the microorganisms to grow. But that definitely doesn’t mean that there were no microbes, but just that during the time we took up the task, the conditions were unfavourable for them to grow. But the same conditions favoured the grasses and dicots and habitable for the insects and fungi.

We plan, replan, and plan some more to build a house and arrange things in it and still never manage to be orderly, but in the wild, nature has everything planned, mapped and executed perfected. Except for us. We try to overcome the structure of nature, overly so and disrupt it. We think we are above nature and rule it, but in reality, it’s not us, but them who rule us. 

The Snowflake ❄ and Friends
Credits- narration bestie flake
Elements- All other flakes