Oaxaca Journal Read Free Page B

his camera and notebook, recording new species and hybrids (an
Asplenium
hybrid he discovered,
Asplenium
x
morganii
, was named after him), unusual locations of ferns, strange associations of ferns with other plants and particular habitats, and unusual cultural uses of ferns (the eating of fiddleheads in different cultures, for instance, or the drinking of
Ophioglossum
tea). He is the epitome, as Darwin himself was, of the amateur naturalist, and at the same time he is perfectly at home with the latest in evolutionary theory and genetics. And yet all this is a hobby, a sideline for Tom, who was a physicist, a pioneer in materials science. Tom has been to Oaxaca, and urges me to go on this trip, even though he himself will not—he is going to Puerto Rico this year instead.
    In fieldwork, field science, amateurs still provide major contributions, as they have done for centuries. In the eighteenthcentury, many of these amateurs were clergymen, like the Reverend William Gregor, who discovered the new element titanium in a black sand in a nearby parish, or Gilbert White, whose
Natural History of Selbourne
is still one of my favorite books. A special power of observing and remembering particulars, a special memory for places, allied to a love, a lyrical feeling for nature, is characteristic of this naturalist’s sort of mind. In the 1830s it was remarked of William Smith, the “father of geology,” that, even in his old age, his “memory for localities was so exact that he has often, after many years, gone direct to some hoard of nature to recover his fossils.” It is similar with Tom Morgan—he remembers, I think, every fern of significance he has ever seen, and not only remembers it, but exactly where it was located.
    Comets and supernovae are frequently spotted first by amateur astronomers (one such, a minister in Australia, using only a small telescope but able to remember the exact location of every supernova, has made a unique survey of the incidence of supernovae in a thousand galaxies). Amateurs are vital in mineralogy—independent of grants or professional support, they get to places professionals may not reach and describe new species of mineral every year. It is similar with fossil hunting, and bird-watching. In all of these fields, what is most crucial is not necessarily professional training but the naturalist’s eye, which comes from some combination of native disposition, biophilia, with experience and passion. Amateurs, in the best sense, have exactly this—a passion, a love, for their subject, and the accumulated experience, often, of a lifetime of acute observation in the field. The professionals in the Fern Societyhave always recognized this, and thus everyone—so long as they love ferns—is welcome in the group, even if they are quite inexperienced. “The veriest greenhorn and the highest authority have always been on an equal footing as members,” as the Society’s president wrote on its fortieth anniversary—and I, as a start, am just such a greenhorn.
    * Or so it was said when I was a boy. The current understanding, based on DNA sequencing, and not just on morphology, or the sequence of ancient plants in the fossil record, is against any such simple lineage, but indicates instead that lycopods, ferns (including fern allies), and seed plants constitute the three main lineages of vascular plants, all presumably evolved from a common ancestor back in the Silurian.

CHAPTER TWO

S ATURDAY
    M ost of the thirty people on this tour to Oaxaca are members of the AFS, but drawn from different parts of the country—New York, Los Angeles, Montana, Atlanta. Today, on our first morning in Oaxaca, we are beginning to get acquainted over breakfast, and looking forward to getting our first glimpse at the town itself, an old colonial capital surrounded by a modern city of 400,000 people or so.
    As we wind down the steep road from the hotel above the city, on our little tour bus, we stop and get out to enjoy a