the number 76

I need to make clear that this blog is not completely scientific. It's definitely partly scientific. But it's also about coincidence, identity and spirituality.

One coincidence is that, at around the same time the question about the number of plant families came up, my aunt offered me the book "Taxonomy of Vascular Plants" by George H.M. Lawrence, Professor of Botany at the Bailey Hortorium, Cornell University.

When I read about Magnol's 76 plant families, the number itself intrigued me. I was curious as to what those families were, but my Internet searches came up with nothing. I was away from home and my collection of botany books. Upon my return, I perused an old favorite - the Golden guide to "Trees of North America" - and to my bemusement, the second page of the book states that "the guide includes 730 species in 76 families".

Then, as an exercise, I decided to list all the species of plants that I was familiar with through work, travel, and memories of various properties going back to my childhood. I tried to limit the list to plant species that were either very familiar or meaningful to me in some way. There were hundreds. When that part was done, I decided to look up which families those plants belonged to. I had never focused on families very much and it was interesting to learn that various species from very different parts of my life belonged to the same family.

Example: the winged euonymous shrubs that abound on my father's east coast property belong to the same family (Celastraceae) as the maytenus trees that abound where I presently live on the west coast. Who knew?

Finally, out of curiosity, I counted up the total number of plant families that "my" plant list encompassed. As I neared the the end of the count, I was filled with that uncanny feeling that comes from recurring coincidences. There were 77. Or maybe it was 78. Close enough.