Sure, we should all eat dessert first, for life is short and uncertain. Even in our time as humans, we get many chances to delay some gratification for later enjoyment. It’s called discipline, or maybe virtue. It’s not universal, but I can think of two life forms that make us look like lifelong party animals. Meet the mayapples and cicadas.
The mayapple, aka ground lemon
In our local plant community, consider the humble mayapple. This umbrella-leafed relative to the barberry emerges during the month of May in wild profusion on shady forest hillsides. They reproduce in two ways; underground by rhizomes, or sexually by pollination. Rhizomes are modified stems that make new shoots and roots as they extend. They can create a genetically identical stand of mayapples. Mayapples are odd creatures with up to a four year life cycle. For the most part, they grow underground, undercover, undetected. When they grow to be a green plant, the males sport a single waxy white flower. The females bear a single drooping one inch fruit, which matures from green to yellow.
The fruit, leaves, roots and all are poisonous. When the fruit ripens and turns yellow, it’s edible, though still toxic in large amounts. A pity, as it’s said to taste like a mix of pineapple and Starburst candy. You’re likely to find box turtles where you find ripening mayapples. The mayapple seeds depend on a trip through the gut of a turtle, both for seed activation, and dispersal. The turtle wanders off to eventually deposit a genetically new mayapple, which will spend the next 4-5 years developing a rhizome network of its own. That same plant may not produce a bloom for up to 12 years. The rhizome grows about half a foot per year, so a large colony of mayapples can be over a century old. Sounds inefficient at best, but the large tracts of umbrella leaves in a forest in May testify that it somehow works.
Around the time May ends, so does the mayapple’s appearance on the surface. By mid-June, the leaves yellow, shrivel and disappear, as if a disease suddenly comes and wipes them out. It will all play out again the following year.
Cicadas will not be ignored
So, to another short and uncertain life. 2024 was a banner year for the tiny noise factories known as cicadas.
In the U.S. there are two types of cicada; those that hatch annually, and those that hatch periodically at intervals of over a decade. In 2024, the simultaneous hatch of two large periodic broods added trillions of additional cicadas to the usual annual batch. This event is rare enough that the last instance of it was a year before Lewis and Clark headed west.
The cicada is an unlovely thing to behold. It sports a huge head with prominent eyes set widely apart, and giant wings. As if you could miss them. As if you could miss them, they add to their dubious appeal with a loud whirring, created by buckling corrugated membranes along their abdomens. The mostly hollow abdomen of the cicada amplifies the sound. They are among the loudest insects known to man. If a cicada panics, it will make a higher squeaking sound, which is small thanks for attempting to place one back on its feet. Their collective song can exceed 100 decibels, on the order of a nearby passing locomotive..
The biology of abundance
Cicadas dig the heat, and are adapted to enjoy it. They feature evaporative cooling, like sweating in mammals. It’s when they get very hot that they tap the xylem flowing in tree twigs. It provides moisture for them to excrete. This can reduce their body temperature by 5 degrees C.
When the eggs hatch, the new nymphs drop to the ground and burrow down. Cicada larvae live most of their lives at a depth of about two feet. They dig chambers near roots where they feed on xylem sap. In their final stage they dig their exit tunnel, emerge and then shed their skins on nearly plants, debuting as adults ready to rumble, or at least whirr.
In an evolutionary advantage shared by creatures like sardines and lemmings, they hatch in such abundance that predators can’t eat even a fraction of them. They add a wrinkle by showing up less than once a decade, so no predator will evolve while depending on them for a food source. Unlike the mayapple, cicadas are edible and reputed to be tasty. Can’t be too delicious, as the supply far exceeds any demand for them.
You might think that a 13 or even 17 year solitary stint might lead to some wild times when these actual teenagers are suddenly set free to mingle. In the event, a pair of cicadas consummating an evening of lusty serenading face away from each other. Perhaps they fantasize about a better looking mate. When finished, that’s basically it for the male cicada. He’ll dodder around a bit, then turn belly up and call it quits. The female will lay eggs 3-5 days later, in slits she cuts in live tree twigs. The females then also die, and the carcasses of larval skins and dead adults pile up at the base of trees.
When the party’s over
You can see the effects of all these thirsty egg laying cicadas on outlying tree foliage. Oaks, maples, walnuts and gum trees have dead leaves on broken twigs. They dangle from the tree, or fall to the ground like they were diseased or heat stricken. For the astounding numbers of cicadas, the small loss of twigs and leaves is remarkable. Damage itself seems unusual because no one is around from 1803, to tell you that’s how it goes. The trees themselves should be fine.
Mayapples and their four year cycle; periodic cicadas and their 13 and 17 year cycles. Just shows you that slow and steady sometimes wins the race. Both species live for their six week parties. It reminds one of college spring break, but on a multi-year timeline. Party’s over for now.
Let me leave you with a song. Here’s Brazilian artist Lenine, with a song built on a sound. It’s called Malvadeza. Thats Portuguese for “wicked thing.”
Resources
The cartoon that leads off this essay is by Jim Borgman for the Cincinnati Enquirer; 1987.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada
https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/tag/Mayapple
https://vnps.org/princewilliamwildflowersociety/botanizing-with-marion/mayapple-plant-profile
https://www.in.gov/dnr/kids/plants/mayapples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podophyllum_peltatum
https://www.georgetown.edu/news/ask-a-professor-cicadas/
The author took most of the photos for this essay at Kirkwood Park. It’s remarkable what you can find while walking in the woods there. Last year I wrote about the skinks that have moved in under a wooden foot bridge: lafayettesquarearchives.com/2023-i-spied-a-skink/
