Clan Leaf

It can be pretty easy to underestimate the value of a single leaf.  After all, each healthy deciduous tree and bush is covered with lots of leaves during the warmer months.  Then, as the cold months approach, the leaves detach themselves from the parent plant, falling to the ground.  Some of them might go out in a flash of glory, showing off bright yellows, oranges and reds.  But, ultimately, they will fall.

If a person wanted to, they could pull a leaf off of a tree and the tree would barely notice.  Whole branches, covered in leaves, might come down in a storm, but the tree can live on.  Once the leaf is no longer part of the tree, the leaf withers and fades.

It's enough to conclude that leaves aren't terribly important.  Just an unnecessary appendage that some people will grumble about when they fall to the tidy lawns in suburban neighborhoods.  A fragile decoration that is shredded in a hailstorm or gnawed by various insect larvae.

Now that we have reached Thanksgiving, very few trees in Iowa are adorned with leaves.  We find ourselves walking under the boughs of trees as they reveal their skeletal features.  While we know that most of these trees are merely hibernating, we can't help but feel that they are dead.

Because leaves harvest light, which becomes life.

We know this, even if we can't immediately describe the process of the conversion of light to energy.  The leaves are a measure of health.  Leaves speak of the wind.  Leaves provide a place for the songbirds to swim as they seek out their own sustenance.  Leaves collect droplets of life-giving water.  

And this is where our definition of importance might need adjustment.  Just because the removal of one does not result in the death or loss of the whole, larger organism, it does not follow that this single leaf has less importance than any other part of the tree.

While a branch may not fully appreciate or understand the function and form of a leaf, it still needs to recognize its value and respect it.  The roots will never see a leaf, but it takes its nourishment through photosynthesis while the leaf is part of the plant or as a result of decomposition after the leaf falls and is broken down into useful nutrients.

So, here's a blog to honor Clan Leaf.  They may be easy to remove and take for granted.  But, they bring light and life to the rest of the organism.  Without them, the tree will eventually die.  But as long as some still appear each Spring there is hope.