Jun 25 2009
Fruit for Goldilocks
The native orange tree in our yard has nasty spikes on it. Whenever I reach into the branches I invariably get scratched. It makes me wonder why they evolved. How did the spikes protect the tree in eons past? From whom?
And then there are the fruits themselves. They didn’t evolve for the human palate, that’s for sure. The native trees produce fruit far too sour to eat. Yet the flesh is there for a reason. Maybe two or more reasons.
1) To entice a creature into eating the fruit and, inadvertently, the nearly indigestible seeds so as to better broadcast them across the land.
2) Maybe provide some fertilizer for the growing seed? I don’t know about this one–it’s just an offhand conjecture.
So many forces have shaped the form and function of life on this planet. Including our own.
