Poul Anderson often states that terrestroid planets will grow not grass but, probably, some equivalent.
Anderson and Dickson seem to ignore this point when they describe the New Lemurian landscape:
feathery, fragrant trees;
flying insects;
singing birds;
"...a grassy slope..." (p. 21);
sparkling sea;
fishing boat;
red sail.
However, in the very next paragraph, Charlie reflects that "...words like 'insect,' 'bird,' or 'grass...'" (ibid.) are not really appropriate. There are close parallels but many biological differences. Unscientifically, he thinks, "fish." Scientifically, he would have to think, "ichthyoid." (ibid.) So perhaps there is really a "grassoid" slope?
I have not yet mentioned the plot because I find plenty of interesting details to discuss. Blog readers should read or reread the novel, of course.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm sure that if Charlie Stuart had been an adult with a full and scientific education, he would have used terms like "piscoid." But he was aware it was not accurate to use words applicable to Earth plants and animals.
Sean
Alien planets don't necessarily have to have a grass-equivalent either.
Earth didn't have grass at all until around 100 million years ago, and they weren't widespread until about 55 million years ago. They didn't become ubiquitous until some time after that, though the process was very rapid once they made certain adaptations.
Before that, not only were there no grasses, there were no ecological equivalents, either. Ground cover was much less dense, erosion was much faster, and there were no equivalents of prairies and steppes.
Poul has an example of that, in A MESSAGE IN SECRET; Altai has recently (in geological terms) undergone ecological upheaval, as the extremely long cold period comes to an end, when it was glaciated from pole to pole. There are only a few primitive organisms trying to re-adapt when humans arrive, and release their grasses -- which carpet the entire non-glaciated part of the planet in an eyeblink, along with a whole introduced ecology of new species, which in turn evolve with explosive speed to become the equivalents of wild herbivores, wolves, etc.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
A very reasonable point: that not all planets with life on them are going to have analogues to the grass we now have on Earth.
I like the comparison you made using Altai from PA's "A Message in Secret." Yes, the advanced life forms from Earth did rapidly take over the non-glaciated portions of Altai. And don't forget that very intriguing section where rapidly evolving animals descended from RATS attacked Flandy and his friends. So rapidly evolving that these "rats" were coming close to attaining true intelligence.
I also thought of the planet Nike, in "A Tragedy of Errors." An ancient, metal poor world much like Mars. So OLD that Nike's sun was leaving the main sequence and the planet was belatedly outgassing an atmosphere. But plants on Nike were still so primitive that when humans from Earth colonized it the plants they introduced mostly swept away the native plants.
Sean
Yes, though you'd have to introduce a whole clutch of bacteria and fungi and so forth for plants to do well -- nitrogen-fixing bacteria, for example.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I first came across that idea of how important it is to have nitrogen fixing bacteria in Anderson's TWILIGHT WORLD.
And I assume the Terran colonists did exactly what you said needed done when they came to settle Nike.
Sean
Post a Comment