Rex A.E. Hunt presented this beautiful, but scary, address on 2 August, 2026:
“To know the seasons, look to plants. Wildflowers, especially, are excellent teachers.
Their extravagant displays catch our attention. Their small, delicate bodies are beautifully,
frighteningly permeable to the changing pulses of the world.
Plants feel seasonal changes in light, moisture, and heat like few other living beings.
Plant cells feed on sunshine. Water wraps every root and coats the spongy interior of leaves.
The body temperatures of plants fluctuate with those of their surroundings.
This openness makes plants the primary interpreters of the seasons.”
(David George Haskell)
I sit on my front verandah enjoying a home-brewed skinny cappuccino, looking out at our now skeletal Japanese Maple tree.
Gone are the leaves—that gentle chlorophyll green sea-of-life-filled foliage, a miracle of evolution, to its chosen autumn orange and burgundy seven-acutely pointed, lobe leaves… Gone! Not an all-at-once process. But a gradual must-do life-saving transition, as its energy from photosynthesis is diverted to the roots, resulting in autumn technicolored leaves pirouetting to the ground in a light wind, to become crisp brown leaf litter and our garden’s spring fertiliser. Plop! Plop, plop!
The full address can be found here.
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