Praying in the Spring

 

One sure way I know its spring is my Prayer plant starts sending up new shoots through the dirt in its pot. Usually, the Prayer plant’s spring is always a couple of weeks earlier than the official date of spring.

I get excited when I see the new shoots and then the leaves opening and filling the pot. The leaves are green and oval shaped with dark purple lines showing through the middle. The dark purple lines remind me of zebra stripes. The dark lines quickly turn to a shade of light green.

While I am enjoying my Prayer plant, I calculate how many years I have this announcer of spring. This season, I have the plant forty-one years! I know its age because my son, Anthony, just celebrated his forty-first birthday and the Prayer plant was given to him as a gift when he was born. Usually, Prayer plants only live up to ten years. It’s good to have a green thumb!

As spring moves along, the plant gets very full. It’s at this time that I like to look at the plant in the evening. This is when all the leaves face upwards, looking like hands in prayer, hence, the name Prayer plant. By morning, the leaves move downwards again until evening.

Writing about this indicator of spring got me curious as to why the leaves look like they’re praying every night. This is what I found out. The natural movement of the leaves up and down is called nyctinasty. This up and down motion of the leaves helps the Prayer plant conserve energy and water during the night. Well, for forty-one years, I did not know this.

There had been short periods of time when the plant looked a little ill. That’s when I say to myself, “If this Prayer plant ever dies, I will truly grieve. Then I think to myself, I will pray like the Prayer plant prays, that it will live forever.

Ellen