Plants in their silent presence conceal the fact that they provide us with the basic needs of life. They are the repositories of our food, clothing and shelter, the fundamental resources necessary for our long-term physical survival. As such, Arbour Day was established to promote the care and planting of these indispensable components of our natural environment. On Friday, the Virgin Islands through the National Parks Trust will celebrate Arbour Day under the theme, “Conserving Our Plant Treasures.” Residents are encouraged to participate by planting a tree or plant.
Photosynthesis
How do plants provide us with these basic needs of life? In school as part of our integrated science classes, we learn about photosynthesis, the process by which the leaves and other green parts of plants uses carbon dioxide, water and light to make carbohydrates.
The plant breathes in the atmospheric gas carbon dioxide through tiny holes on its leaves call stomata, and it obtains the water used in the process from the soil by way of its roots. Primarily in the leaves, light energy provided mainly from the sun causes a chemical reaction that combines the carbon from the carbon dioxide, hydrogen from the water, and oxygen from both to form carbohydrates — a compound consisting of atoms of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. During this process, the plant “exhales” the by-product oxygen through the stomata on its leaves.
The carbohydrates produced by photosynthesis come in three main types: sugars, starches and fibres. It is these main types of carbohydrates that form the building blocks of our food, clothing and shelter. In the case of the sugars and starches derived from plants, they form the most important source of energy for our bodies. They are found in the fruits, nuts and other parts of plants that make up our food.
The fibres, on the other hand, which make up the structural component of the plant, provide us with the basic materials needed for our clothing and shelters. Plant fibres are the basic building blocks of fabrics such as cotton, linen and rayon, which make up so much of the clothes we wear today. The plant fibre we call wood is that indispensable material obtained from trees and used in virtually all the shelters that we build.
‘Tree of life’
In closing, in case you may have missed it, that by-product of photosynthesis that we call “oxygen” makes up the most vital component of the air we breathe, and is even more basic that the food, clothing and shelter that we already derive from plants. So considering that plants provide us with so much, and yet ask so little of us in return, it is fitting that humans have set aside a day in which they should be honoured.
However, it would appear that humans have always had some sense of the immense value of plants with the frequent occurrence of the “tree of life” in the creation stories of so many of the world’s religions.
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