King Solomon

I remember the first few rangeland plant identification practices I had. I hardly knew the coach, Dr. Knight, since he sponsored me for a scholarship in the field a few months before college started. I had only spoken to him through email and phone calls. I finally met him at the beginning of my freshman year. When we shook hands, and he asked, “So you’re joining Plant Team right?” I didn’t quite understand at first, but his description sounded familiar to my experiences on FFA teams. They studied, memorized, and matched the names of plant species to their features. Each team member had 60 seconds to identify each one to their family, genus, and species, spelled correctly, along with their origin and longevity. It could be one of 200 species, and we had to memorize every species on the list. I had been a part of a landscape judging team through FFA where we allowed a name bank of the 50 common names we studied. This team is what shocked me into the difference between college and high school, not the classes.

My memorization was truly tested for four years while on the Texas A&M Plant ID Team. I started absorbing bits and pieces of what made each species different from the others.  My friends became accustomed to hearing the excuse “I can’t. I have plant practice,” often from me. Even when I tried to explain to my professors outside of my major that I would be taking a week off from school to travel to Billings, Montana for a national Society of Range Management meeting to compete in a Plant ID contest, I was met with skeptical questions.  It was like I was a part of a strange club.

I’m encouraged by King Solomon’s interest in living creatures. 1 Kings 4:32 states, “He spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs were one thousand and five.” The proofs of his wisdom and song writing are found in the Scriptures within the book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Songs of Solomon. The Scriptures also speaks of how Solomon asked God for wisdom when he could have asked for anything. After emphasizing his wisdom, the author of 1 Kings accounts that, “Also he spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish.” A man with God’s gift of wisdom spoke of the flora and fauna around him.

I believe in God’s gifts, that He gives us a heart for cultures, ministries, and even fields of study.  When friends asked me what a grass is called in the lawn of A&M’s Research Park, and I respond with Cynodon dactylon, they laugh and tell me not to mix up dinosaur names with grass names. Despite the unusual interest, I have grown a heart for identifying plants, even some insects as well. To identify individual organisms, we can begin to understand and classify plant communities, the animals that live within them, and then classify those areas into ecosystems. The individual builds the ecosystem. Perhaps Solomon understood that also. Either way, it comforts me to know I’m not the only one a step-short of being obsessed with plants, or one of 6 or so students who were also on the Plant Team.

I also find it interesting that within verse 33, he describes the cedar tree and hyssop with more detail than any other type of organism. I love also that “the hyssop…springs out of the wall”. I can imagine Solomon sitting near a brick-laid wall observing hyssop breaking through it. Life had burst forth from concrete. Something so frail could force itself through something we assume to be stronger. Whatever he pondered or spoke further about God’s creation, I’m glad He did.