Many people are at least passingly, familiar with the idea that vegetation can provide navigational clues, if just the tired and mostly inaccurate trope that moss grows on the north side of trees (more on that later!). Plants, of course, utilize sunlight and water, to produce energy in the form of glucose, through the process of photosynthesis. This is achieved through the utilization of chlorophyll, and sunlight-activated chlorophyll is what produces the green color in plants. Understanding this fact can aid in navigation even on overcast, cloudy days when the use of shadows is curtailed. More available energy results in more concentrated growth, and thus is found on plants that receive more sunlight. We can utilize this knowledge in two ways. Generally speaking1, the sunnier, southern slopes of mountains of hills will have denser vegetation than the shaded northern side. On the other hand, available moisture can play as much of a role in this. There is a large butte directly behind my house, to the north. It’s southern face is almost entirely clad in sagebrush, with a few isolated stands of willows and quaking aspen along the few stream beds that fall down it from various springs. The northern face however, is blanketed in thick, densely grown timber, despite not receiving any appreciable direct sunlight for most of the year. In this case, the abundant sunlight on the south face, combined with our high desert lack of precipitation in all but winter, results in soil too dry to allow much growth, except along the streams, Cultivated ground however, can reliably provide directional aids, because it is usually irrigated in one manner or another. A field that stretches over an expanse of broken ground will not come into bloom simultaneously, and the times of different parts of the field are influenced as much by available sunlight as by the largely uniform irrigation and fertilization. Read the rest: https://www.patreon.com/posts/primi...paign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link Continue reading...
