Seeds as Seers

Waiting patiently for our chance to bloom

- Sujatha Rao

Perhaps nothing in nature knows the value of waiting as does the seed of a plant. While on an average, seeds can wait for at least a year before sprouting, some seeds like cherry seeds have the capacity to wait for a hundred years.

In her book "Lab Girl", Hope Jahren writes about an experiment conducted on the exterior layer of lotus seed (Nelumbo nucifera). After the scientists broke open its exterior layer and nurtured its embryo towards growth, they subjected the empty husk to radiocarbon dating. To their great amazement, they found that that particular seedling had been waiting over 2000 years for its single opportunity at life, without giving up hope, even while kingdoms and empires were rising and falling around it.

But what exactly was the seed waiting for? We don't know. Perhaps it was waiting for an optimal combination of temperature-moisture-light-nutrients that gave it a better chance at survival, so that its one chance at life was not wasted.

Let's compare this with the process of the beginning of human life. Millions of sperms compete for the entry into one egg. Here too, there is only one shot at the possibility of a fusion, without any scope for the waiting.

A seed is very much alive as it waits, silently and patiently. Next time when you tread into a forest and wonder at the marvel of those majestic oaks that stretch far above into the sky making you crane your neck to get a glimpse of its tip, don't forget to turn your wonder-struck gaze towards those hundreds of seeds strewn about the ground too.