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Earth Matters : Juvenile plants just not ready to bloom

By Lawrence Winship

Each spring the Connecticut River Valley is flooded with fresh colors and smells as leaves and flowers burst out of dormant buds on trees and shrubs. Green shoots push up through the last snow and over-top last year’s brown leaves, covering the ground with a new cloak of verdant shapes. Each new flower and leaf results from a distinct “choice” by the growing point of a plant to bear flowers, or to bear leaves. One or the other! Because once a growing point starts down the path of becoming a flower and ultimately a fruit, there is no going back for that particular shoot.