Prologue - Walking in step with the plants and seasons

Part 1 Winter

january
Plants of Today and Plants of Tomorrow
The place where the snow fell and left

february
One step, reminiscent of broccoli flowers
Crocuses that created a secret garden

Part 2 Spring

March
The first flower to herald spring in the West
One day when pear blossoms bloom, clearing up a misunderstanding about pear trees.

april
April showers call forth May flowers.
Just because the petals fall doesn't mean the flower is gone.
When a bud sprouts on a broken branch

May
Leaves more beautiful than flowers
Because the tree is there
Beautiful lights embroidered on the plants
How did we come to know each other?

Part 3 Summer

June
The beauty of invisible creatures
From the darkness of the forest
Cute Plant Explorer

July
Summer fruits in the recording
Even 'eating plants' had a beginning
Nature has no prejudice
For a dead tulip tree to become soil

August
In midsummer, looking at the growth and wounds of trees
Flowers bloom sincerely and truly.
Finding a new path on Amazon
Why do we fall in love at first sight?
How we, the little ones, meet the big tree

Part 4 Fall

September
The season when plants plant seeds
Far beyond the pau pau field
Naturally and leisurely
Beans grow where beans are planted

october
Even flowers that don't bloom don't forget their role.
Even a small bush is a forest to someone.

November
Same plant, different life
What are we doing for other creatures?
The Journey of Cranberry, a Small Tree Living in the Swamp
Science Relay
Now is the time to end it
Seven languages

Part 5: Winter Again

december
A tree like a gift found in the winter forest
The Fate of a Fallen Leaf
Alone in the foggy forest

Epilogue - Standing on the East Side of the Pacific
supplement
Acknowledgements

“In the forest, there is no right or wrong, good or bad, happy or sad.”
Botanical Reflections While Walking Through Maryland Forests

The author introduces the plants he encountered in the forest one by one and tells of the time he spent in the forest.
Walking through a frozen forest in the middle of winter, we talk about an episode about cranefly orchids that sprout leaves in winter, and about the providence of nature that covers the seeds and various microorganisms of plants warmly when snow piles up throughout the winter, allowing us to see fresh green leaves in spring.
In early spring, he enters a closed research building with a senior researcher and encounters a secret garden covered in crocus flowers, a moment of wonder, and through the story of the Orchid Show (orchid flower festival) held in spring, he unfolds the world of fungi that sprouted the gorgeous flowers.
He also tells a funny anecdote about a 'misunderstanding' about Western pears while looking at pear blossoms in full bloom on one side of the lab one day in March, a story about tulip tree blossoms found in the Maryland forest in May, the process by which the flowers decompose and seep into the soil to become nutrients, and a surprising story about how the powdered tulip tree branches are used to make nutrients for orchids.
It's a mysterious and surprising fact that the umbrella-shaped mayapple has highly toxic leaves throughout its entirety, but its yellow fruit is structured to be non-toxic, so as not to harm the animals that disperse its seeds.

“I had a vague idea that in the forest there would be nothing right or wrong, good or bad, happy or sad.
Some people summarize the way organisms survive with the word competition.
But I think that competition and symbiosis are too fragmentary to explain nature.
Rather, the words harmony, connection, and circulation are more appropriate.
Everything in nature is harmoniously connected and circulates.
When something is added, it comes from something else.
“The link is each individual, and the way each individual lives is unique to that individual, but ultimately it affects itself, other individuals, and the surrounding environment.” (p. 97)

“Every process in a plant is important.
“Even things that are thrown away and disappear”
On the natural order of harmony, connection, and circulation

This book also reveals nature's mysterious mechanisms that change with the seasons.

Cherry blossoms, the harbingers of spring: When cherry blossom petals fall, scars remain where they once stood.
Plants also try to heal their wounds on their own.
The scientific community predicted that plants would heal the wounds by covering the surface of fallen petals with a substance called 'lignin'.
However, Korean scientists discovered that lignin is produced along the surface where the petals are cut, not where they fall.
Lignin fills in the spaces between the cells of the surface to be separated, making the surface smooth, and the petals are cut smoothly and precisely along that surface.

Summer Green, Downy Rattlesnake Plantain (Orchid): Orchid seeds lack the nutrients to germinate on their own and require the help of a special fungus.
The fungus delivers external nutrients to the orchid seeds.
And although it hasn't been studied much, the fungus needs the help of certain bacteria to thrive.
The bacteria help the fungus, and the fungus helps the orchid.
When you think about this ecosystem, the countless microorganisms that are invisible to the eye are truly amazing.

Ruby of Autumn, Cranberry: When you pick up cranberries, you'll notice they're lighter than you think and float in water when you wash them.
When cut horizontally, four air sacs can be observed, containing a mixture of gases such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and oxygen.
Cranberries that live in wetlands can disperse their seeds by using air sacs inside the fruit to drift along the water.
Thanks to this, you can see the air pockets popping as you boil the cranberry sauce.

The master of winter, the holly: When the leaves of the broadleaf trees fall and the forest is empty, sunlight reaches the lower areas.
Without competitors to steal sunlight, the relatively slow-growing, short holly tree can enjoy all the sunlight on its own.
It leisurely photosynthesizes by keeping its green leaves alone when deciduous trees drop their leaves in winter.
Instead, it makes its leaves hard, thick, and pointed to withstand the winter cold.

“If you think about the process of petals falling one by one, there is no process that is not amazing among the precisely calculated movements of the plant.
Also, all processes must be performed in order.
It also means throwing away and disappearing.
Just as letting go is important in our lives.
It may seem obvious that everything falls down, but one scientist got curious and discovered gravity.
In this way, everything in nature is in fact very mysterious and inevitable.
That's why it's more beautiful.
“There are also many days when the fallen cherry blossom petals turn the color of dirt and are trampled underfoot, and when the cherry blossoms fall and green leaves grow lush and people do not pay attention to the cherry trees.” (p. 60)

“Just as nature cannot be predicted by human knowledge,
“Plants always make me aware of my own prejudices.”
A story of a botanist contemplating the future and a human facing nature.

The author also confesses her intimate times as a female scientist and shares with readers her own experience of growing through the process of understanding and learning about plants.
If the time before was spent studying or drawing alone among his favorite plants, the three years he spent in Maryland were a process of healing the wounds he had suffered in various relationships and the times when he doubted his talent as a botanist.
Through the friendships I developed with my lab colleagues, the affectionate relationship with my grandmother and biology teacher, the warm consideration of my senior researchers, and the experiences I had with students I met in the Amazon and people I volunteered with on farms, it was a time for me to grow as a person who encounters nature.

Ultimately, what the author wanted to convey in this book was an unbiased view of others, as is the case with nature, and love for the world and people.
That is why the recommendation by author Kim Geum-hee, who said, “I hope this book, as a gentle ‘sniffer dog,’ will stay close to those who love nature,” is so touching.

“At the threshold of midsummer, eat a fruit.
The fruit gives us a refreshing break from the warm sunlight, the muggy heat, the damp monsoon rain, the insects in the forest, and our weary selves.
I recall the fruit I ate shining brightly in the greenery.
Its taste also reminds me of the summer sun, heat, rain, and the toil of insects.
“Like forest animals eating fruit, we realize what a cycle we were in nature in the beginning, and how beautiful and peaceful it was.” (p. 109)