The Life Cycle of a Fire Poppy Week 2 (work in progress)

The Life Cycle of a Fire Poppy Video Pre-Production

Introduction

Audio: “Papaver californicum” also known as “fire poppies” is a species of poppy flowers, native to California. These flowers grow annually in chaparral, oak woodlands, and other habitats, often in places that have recently burned.

Video: clips of the flowers, zoom on the petal, clips of lighter flicking, clips of forest fires.

Pyro-Germination

Audio: These flowers have a unique life cycle as they only bloom for a couple of days, and they are pyro-germinators. The word pyro-germination can be broken down to its two components “Pyro” and “Germination”. “Pyro” meaning “fire,” “heat,”or “high temperature,” and “Germination” being the process by which an organism grows from a seed. This creates a phenomenon which makes Fire Poppies only appear in areas recently affected by forest fires.

Video: Captions, Clips of flowers, zoom on petals, clips of the germination of seeds, clips of forest wildfires.

Fire Follower Flowers

Audio: The fire poppy belongs to a group of plants known as fire followers: those that use the heat, smoke or charred soil as signals to sprout. Fire Poppies release seeds into the wind which lie dormant until they germinate through smoke and ash.

Video: Footage of the land, footage of their presence in the land, footage of smoke and ash from forest fires.

Life Cycle of Fire Poppies

Audio: For other fire followers, the heat of a blaze can crack open the hard coating on a seed. For fire poppies, the signal comes from smoke. Fire can clear out shrubs that suck up nutrients and water, which allow new types of flora to grow. Shrubs also create a dense canopy, which prevents new plants from poking up. When shrubs are gone, annual flowers like the fire poppy also play an important role. They provide vegetative cover that helps to reduce erosion on steep slopes after the protective cover has been burnt off. After waiting for the exact conditions to sprout, they may only bloom for a day or two. After that, they will have to wait for the next blaze.

Vide0: Footage of the flower, footage of the land in which they grow and forest fires.

Conclusion

Audio: Fire Poppies are a beautiful fleeting phenomenon that always bloom right after forest fires. They can serve as symbols of hope and re-growth right after death and tragedy. They remind us of the resiliency and resourcefulness of nature with destruction as a catalyst for growth, and how flourishing does not always look the same.

Video: Outro of the fields of fire poppies.

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