L. J. (Larry) Davenport, Professor of Biology at Samford University, may be known to some for his engaging and humorous talks at the West Blocton Cahaba Lily Festival each spring, and to many more for his quarterly nature columns in Alabama Heritage magazine.
By Don Noble
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/national/local-national-929829.mp3
Audio ?2010 Alabama Public Radio
L. J. (Larry) Davenport, Professor of Biology at Samford University, may be known to some for his engaging and humorous talks at the West Blocton Cahaba Lily Festival each spring, and to many more for his quarterly nature columns in Alabama Heritage magazine.
This volume was originally to be a collection of 25 of these columns on Alabama flora and fauna but, in the course of production, morphed into a nature journal. That is, after each essay, there are three blank, lined pages and a kind of assignment related to that essay. These assignments are of several different kinds.
For example, after sharing a distressing childhood memory of when a neighbor shot and killed a magnificent Great Blue Heron, Davenport's "totem animal," because the bird was "eating too many fish," Davenport urges the reader to ponder whether he has a favorite or totem animal, one with whom he has a special affinity, and to write up an experience that perhaps involved that animal.
Other assignments are really biology field work?observe, take notes, make sketches of some plant or animal in particular, or research/library assignments, such as "research the life cycle of wheat rust, another heteroecious fungus." I'll be surprised if many take up that particular challenge.
After the chapter on the morel mushroom, complete with recipe, Davenport interestingly stops short of assigning the reader to gather and cook some. He reminds us, "imposters and look-alikes abound, and any a-morel acts can prove deadly." A biologist's mushroom death joke. I wonder if I will ever be certain enough of a wild mushroom to risk agonizing death.
Some will doubtless use this book as a journal to write in. Some, however, may be held back by the sheer beauty of the book, including the blank pages. It would be like writing in an art book.
Each of the 25 essays is preceded by a color plate, many by W. Mike Howell, and these are magnificent, from the colorful soldier fish to the brown pelican and painted bunting to the giant swallowtail butterfly sipping on salvia blossoms to the luna moth to plants such as the Jack-in-the-pulpit or lady slipper orchid and fungus like cedar apple rust.
Davenport is at his humorous best, though, in dispensing little-known information concerning the digestive tracts and sex lives of his subjects.
The ant lion, he tells us, has no "bottom" opening so remains constipated for three years. "Is that what makes ant lions so mean?" Dragonflies "respire rectally, sucking in fresh water? [and] expelling it." This is also a means of propulsion.
Adult luna moths have no digestive tracts at all. They do not feed. "They devote their one week of life entirely to sex, their sole mission to mate." The males are guided, absolutely enthralled in fact, by the pheromones emitted by females, although they can be distracted by streetlights.
Davenport digresses a little to talk about the pheromones manufactured by boars, goldfish, bees, and humans of both sexes. Many mating decisions are, it seems, less than cerebral and in fact there is "actual scientific proof that everyone looks better near closing time."
To attract females, the green tree frog bellows "quonk." Sometimes, however, the female, on her way to the caller, is waylaid by a "satellite male." This Davenport calls "sexual parasitism." The caller has risked his life making his mating call, and gets nothing for his troubles.
As I hope is clear, this is a smart, informative and surprisingly funny book. And it's not all about mating. The chapter on liverleaf and the Doctrine of Signatures tells us of the belief that plants that look like a part of the human body are good for curing ailments in that part. Liverleaf leaves are three-lobed and reddish brown, like liver. Walnuts look like brains, while ginseng, with a bifurcated root, is a woodland Viagra.
This review was originally broadcast on Alabama Public Radio on September 27, 2007. Don Noble's book reviews can be heard each Monday on Alabama Public Radio at 7:35 a.m. and 4:44 p.m.
Recently retired as an English professor at The University of Alabama, Don's specialties are Southern and American literature. Don also hosts Bookmark on Alabama Public Television. Don's latest book is A State of Laughter: Comic Fiction from Alabama.
