At one point during that week, the dog and I just had to get out of the house. We drove up into the Oregon Cascades and set out to find some random landmarks. (No, I will not be discussing any specific locations in this blog.)
Unexpectedly, as we drove through startling old-growth Douglas fir trees, we encountered spectacular thickets of Pacific Yew- Taxus brevifolia.
This species contains alkaloids that are used for chemotherapy (this is a theme throughout the plant world, it seems) It is toxic as fuck, and they use it to kill breast and prostate cancer. Even though I suppose you will all eventually guess my gender if you haven't already... I am genetically predisposed to one of those cancers. Maybe someday I'll be chowing down some taxanes to prevent my special parts from mutating and killing me.
Mutation... totally the theme of this blog.
Anyhow... the dog and I got out to pee and wandered around the woods a bit. I have a thing for conifers, and I was really hoping to see a broom in one of the yew trees. The term broom can refer to any kind of congested growth on any plant (usually a woody plant.) In conifers, they are usually caused by pathogens or parasites. Conifer nuts search for specific brooms that are caused by genetic mutations. You can usually tell the difference because a pathogen-induced broom looks like a nasty, fucked-up tangle of shit. A genetic mutation usually looks like a tidy little dwarf tree that was glued onto the branch of a normal tree. Rarely, they might have some color variation- like being gold or something.
Alas, no brooms were around. I drove slowly and stared out the window. The dog panted down the back of my neck. I fantasized about alien abductions and anal probes. (I'm a freak- what can I say?)
I saw a strikingly handome yew that was in tree form. Most pacific yews are more shrub-like in form. Really old specimens can grow into small trees. This one had an almost Christmas-tree-like shape. I stopped the car and backed up to admire it.
Something from the left extreme of my peripheral vision caught my eye. I'm not sure how I ever saw it...
There was a bright yellow broom in the top of another yew tree- right next to the road. I stopped and got out to look at it.
Every time you find something like this, it seems like there is this delay in terms of emotional response. You look at it, sort of numb. You wonder if you accidentally took some LSD or mushrooms and you forgot about it. After a few moments it sinks in, and the feeling is hard to describe. For me, I guess I feel enraptured... as though I've been briefly dialed in to what life really should be like. True love comes to those who deserve it. Fairies wait on every toadstool. My boss is torn open by rabid wolves every morning.
Anyhow, I got out the GPS and marked the location. I never have trouble finding plants again, but I always mark their location, just in case. I've tried leaving ribbons but some douche-bag always comes along later and removes them. GPS coordinates are the deal.
A month later, my dad and my uncle came to visit. I needed to get cuttings, since it was the right time to do so (early fall) I decided to drag them up into the mountains and show them the Taxus thickets and old growth Doug fir.
I was in the most horrible of mental states. My job was in the process of exploding. This is a subject for another blog. For now, lets just say that I had been fucked in the ass so hard by my employer that I wasn't sure that I'd ever be able to shit again without losing a pint of blood.
Being in that old growth forest with its unusual Taxus thicket was exactly what the doctor ordered. I was more calm than I had been in weeks. I showed my relatives some of the local landmarks, and then we went to collect cuttings from the tree. I had a pole pruner. The broom was maybe 12 to 15 feet up in the very top of the tree.
Here's a picture of the branch that came down.
Holy shit. From the ground, it just looked like a yellow blob. Up close, it was better than I could have hoped for. Bright yellow needles with a green stripe down the middle. Glowing, gold twigs.
I stuck about 60 cuttings that night while my dad, my uncle and I sat out on the patio by a fire.
It is now February, and I'm still waiting for those god damned cuttings to root. I know they will- Taxus is a very easy genus to propagate. (Even if the cuttings fail, most of the broom is still up there in the woods, so I can take a few more.)
I have fantasies about gold hedges, adorned with coral-red fruits- fertilized by my ex-boss's blood.
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