Awesome Ologies

Do you listen to podcasts?  They sort of feel like a 1990s thing but I still follow several podcasts and one of my favorites is Ologies.  In an episode on wasps with Eric Eaton as the guest an interest in figs was sparked; so I bought a book mentioned in the podcast– Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers: The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees.

So what did I learn?

Figs figure large in the history of the world.  They have been around a very very long time.  There is a wasp that pollinates them by living in them and they contribute much to biodiversity.  They can save areas that have been decimated too.  Figs are awesome and there are many varieties of them too.

Having not lived where figs are I loved learning about fig trees: 

"'the most extraordinary trees of the forest.'  They lurk in forests throughout the tropics where they can grow to colossal forms.  It is not only their size that seizes the attention of anyone who sees them.  It is also their shape.  They look less like plants than primeval creatures that have frozen in time, their bodies a hulking mass of once-writhing limbs that dangle matted strands of dark hair." (15)

For some time in college, I made a bunch of pottery with handles inspired by vines... as I read about figs trees I realized the vines I had been thinking of were much like these images of the strangler fig tree.  It grows up around a tree and eventually takes over that tree... and yes this book is interesting it has stretched its lines into my mind and lifted my imagination by feeding it amazing facts.  Science is good like that, as is Ologies.  You should check out the book and the podcast.