(Or   Why Plants Matter )

Like the rest of the animal kingdom, human beings depend on the plant world for their survival, let alone the maintenance of their current lifestyles.

With hindsight it is obvious to most people today that both the hunter-gatherers and the hunter-gatherer-fishers relied on plants and animals for food, medicine, fuel, shelter and clothing. Their settlement, initially in small groups, is believed to have begun at least 8000 years ago (the Middle Stone Age) independently in various parts of the world. This is witnessed in archaeological discoveries for instance in western Europe, eg. Robenhausen in Switzerland, and in the Spokane region of Washington DC in the North American United States. While in eastern Asia evidence has been found suggesting that rice could have been planted in paddyfields in that region possibly 2000 years earlier still, with small settlements nearby. In other words the birth of agriculture worldwide (the cultivation of plants previously harvested in the wild) would appear to have begun about 8-10,000 years ago.

The need to harvest, reserve and recognize stored seeds for the following year’s crop would have contributed significantly to the development of managerial practices, a larger harvest than needed for the group of people in question would have encouraged bartering and exchange between groups (not only of the crop itself but the seeds as well – and artefacts) and the need for tools to cultivate, protect and maintain plants would have led to inventions for which plant material from ever-increasing sources in the wild would have been sought and experimented with. During their earlier nomadic life human beings’ gradual dependence on plants ever increased. The move to static communities only served to accelerate that dependence and extend it into virtually every aspect of human civilisation – a process which still continues today.

From the outset information on all aspects of plant involvement in human affairs was passed down through the generations from parent to child, certainly in the West until relatively recently. About 10-15 years ago some authorities noted that at the end of the 20th Century over 60% of parents in the Western World no longer told their children anything about plants at all. This state of affairs is exacerbated by a view among some authorities in the gardening world in Britain today that 30-45 year olds appear to show a marked lack of interest in gardening. Educationally too, in recent years, the media and various authorities have noted that at secondary and higher levels not only have a significant number of educational bodies dropped botany and horticulture from their curriculum but a tendency seems to be emerging at those levels (especially secondary) for any botany to be merged under biology as in centuries past. (This significant reduction in teaching botany flies in the face of primary level attempts to interest children in botanical matters, and in gardening, attempts which are burgeoning in many places.)

Additionally an expanding wealth of anecdotal evidence from the last couple of decades (still added to today) illustrates amazing ignorance and indifference about anything relating to the countryside. These anecdotes involve a majority of people from all walks of life and most generations – even rural dwellers. Examples of such anecdotes range from a newspaper article about 10-15 years ago to a disturbing farming illustration from the Summer of 2007.

1. The newspaper article, which appeared in an English West Country regional newspaper, described how a boy of about nine (living in an English County town surrounded by farmed countryside) was surprised to find mud on a potato.
2. Then there is the French author living in New York, Mireille Guiliano, who had a book published in 2006, French Women for All Seasons, in which she encourages the adoption of a healthy diet. In the introductory chapters she describes how, in 2005, she met an eight year old boy attending the Union Square Greenmarket in New York who was unable to recognise an apple, let alone a variety of one.
3. A BBC radio reporter in July 2007 mentioned the response of young children when asked where carrots come from, and commented that less than 10% volunteered ‘the earth or the ground’ while the majority believed it was the ‘supermarket’.
   
4. I heard the last anecdotal example directly from an unimpeachable participant. In the Summer of 2007 a nutritionist/senior executive of a major supermarket was watching kindergarten children accompanied by their headmistress on a farm visit. In the milking parlour the headmistress informed that executive of her delight that the children could watch how cows were milked. She then sought advice from the executive – which cow provided the skimmed milk, which the semi-skimmed milk and which the pasteurized milk.

If this was not enough, in July 2008 personnel from the National Trust were being interviewed on a BBC radio news programme about a new National Trust initiative which aimed to address the Trust’s observation that a significant number of children are unable to identify the most common flora and fauna. From personal experience too, the word ‘plant’ has little resonance among the general public from all walks of life in a celebrity-driven society and it can attract an oft-repeated reaction of, in the modern idiom, ‘I don’t do plants’.

I believe that the following factors (which are not exclusive) contribute to this situation:-

I.            Knowledge
As centuries and millennia pass, the amount of information expands and the need to impart knowledge to more and more human beings becomes increasingly demanding. In order to manage the information it has been broken into disciplines. Then as the volume of a specific discipline’s information enlarges and its complexity increases so that discipline is further divided – thus enabling knowledge of that subject to be accessible, assimilated progressively and extended yet further.
Western World academics in earlier centuries studied plant structure and properties under ‘biology’ but, with time, this was segmented as a distinct scientific subject ‘botany’. Academically in theory and actuality ‘botany’ includes every aspect of the plant world. BUT at less academic levels and among layman the subject of ‘botany’ focuses primarily on both the structure and the physical and chemical properties of plants – as biology does of human beings – and information on the usage of plants and the history of their involvement in human activities would be more likely to be sought under, for example, geography or economics.
Discipline terminology, although necessary, has only exacerbated further the general public’s isolation from and indifference to plants. It has also encouraged today’s culture, in the non-academic environment, of ‘boxing’ and emphasising the plant world under a few confined headings – primarily gardening, botany, cooking and medicine. Although these aspects are important in themselves they are the tip of a massive iceberg and their continued dominance tends to imply by default the extent of the human relationship with the plant world.
But plants are fundamental to virtually every aspect of human existence and therefore impinge on and are found in the overwhelming majority of disciplines  (See Summary of the General Index for Plant Biographies below).

II            Urbanisation
There are several relevant side effects of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries in the Western World (particularly in Britain) :-

• an accelerating movement of large numbers of people from the countryside to urban areas not least as industrial and commercial jobs beckoned;
• progressively easier access to merchandise (the majority of which relies on plants in some way) instead of personal involvement in harvesting ingredients (wild or cultivated) and creating products;
•  with the passage of time in those urban areas, the gradual emergence of an ever more plant-free environment;
•  advancing urban sprawl which distances/divorces people who live geographically in the concrete urban centre.

III.          Publications
Today’s plethora of journals, magazines, books and other published material address a particular audience, eg. academia, experts, general public, specific disciplines, entertainment, news, etc. Thus the material all of us read in our professional sphere, eg. carpenter, politician, scientist, inventor, historian, etc., may be completely different from that in our private capacity – and we do not always relate the two. This also means that most botanical books written for academia are not readily available in general bookshops even when they may have a large proportion of information of general interest.

IV           Media and Publishers
 ‘Boxing’ plant matters under the headings gardening, botany, cooking and medicine is perpetuated by the media and general publishers. A recent personal experience well illustrates media practices. Despite all my efforts I was unable to overcome editorial practice after an interview with a respected local journalist who appeared to be fascinated by the Plant Biographies project. Her subsequent article was not printed at the beginning of the thick weekly regional paper under a general heading which would have been likely to have reached a wider audience. Instead it was placed in the body of the issue at the beginning of the gardening section. As members of the general public most of us absorb the constraints imposed by the ‘boxing’ adopted by the media and general publishers, ie. cooking, gardening, botany and medicine – and in so doing, as indicated above, unawareness and indifference to the vital and extensive part plants play in virtually every aspect of human life is exacerbated yet further.

V          Language
Gardeners tend to refer to ‘garden plants, trees, bulbs flowers, etc.’ not to ‘plants’ : cooks talk about ‘vegetables, fruit and herbs’ : and medicines are made with ‘herbs’. This approach can spill over into our professional lives too as, for instance, farmers are likely to talk about ‘crops, animal feed, wheat, etc.’ with little appreciation (or even awareness in many cases) of the many end-uses for which plants on their farm could be destined beyond the income their harvest will produce.

In the middle of this first decade of the 21st Century international authorities have declared that over 50% of the World now resides in urban areas. Thus the points made above could well apply to the whole planet in the near future if they do not do so already not just the Western World.

It could be argued also that in addition to climatic changes, human indifference to the plant world could only exacerbate the already uncertain future for many plant species. As it is, botanists and environmentalists predict the loss of a large number of plants in the immediate decades, including many of the relatively few especially familiar to man. This will leave a multitude of unknown ones that will require time-consuming professional examination and investigation by many specialists before such unfamiliar species can be adopted as ‘alternative’ sources of food, medicine, materials and other valuable assets.

Three further unrelated points:-

A            For many years the phrase ‘you are what you eat’ has been bandied about and today more and more people are beginning to appreciate its meaning. If the relatively recent British Jamie Oliver television programme on the content of school meals did nothing else, it illustrated dramatically the nigh immediate positive effect on children’s brains when fresh food is substituted for junk food.

B.           Less easily-defined but nevertheless valid is lack of appreciation by most of the working populace (both employee and employer) of the plant world’s significant contribution to civilisations can/could be a severe handicap in fulfilling the urgings of authorities to consider and implement environmentally-friendly working practices. And, of course, this principle applies equally to persuading members of the general public to react similarly in their private lives.

C.           There is a concern among some authorities that reduced opportunities to pursue botany and horticulture at secondary and higher educational levels could lead to a future shortage of botanists, horticulturists and professional gardeners at a time when they will be in even greater demand than now. Today a few bodies (commercial and industrial) are actually beginning to seek advice from ‘botanical’ experts on how plants could be involved in resolving environmental issues. It would be disappointing if a future insufficiency of these experts undermined this burgeoning recognition of their knowledge and experience. The birth of an expert depends upon the enthusiasm for and appreciation of plants by families and their demand for botanical education to be available.

If the foregoing arguments are credible the need to entertain and inform/educate the general public on a large and concerted scale, and encourage dialogue between all generations, grows ever more important. Environmentalists, botanists, politicians and other authorities all press humanity to improve their stewardship of the planet – an empty plea if nothing is done to reverse so much indifference to plants and it is highly unlikely that this incapacitating situation can be reversed without society’s and the family’s support.

© Sue Eland, July, 2008

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Summary* of the General Index
extracted from Plant Biographies

Adornment, Anecdotes, Animal/bird, etc., Archaeological finds, Art, Basketry, Bodies, Charcoal, Chemicals, Cleaning, Clothing, Construction, Cosmetics, Cultivation, Currency/barter, Dental/oral uses, Divination, Dogma, Drink, Dyeing/staining, Emblem, Engines, Environmental issues, Equipment, Events

Famous objects/substances, Feed (amphibian), Feed (animal), Feed (bird), Feed (crustacean), Feed (fish), Feed (insect), Feed (mollusc), Feed (reptile), Feed (rodent), Festivals/rituals, Fictitious/mythological figures, Fireworks, Flooring, Flowers, Food, Food chain, Fuel, Furniture, Games/sports, Genetics, Glass, Groups of like people, Gum

Hairdressing, Hedging/fencing, Household items, Hunting/fishing, Ink, Legend, Lighting, Literature, Longevity, Matches, Material, Measurement, Medical/surgical issues, Military associations, Mining/oil drilling, Mourning, Music, Musical instruments, Needlework, Paints/varnishes, Paper, Perfume, Pesticide, Pharmaceuticals, Place/object/other names, Places, Plant, Plastics, Pollination, Product names, Repellent, Rope, Rosaries, Rubber

Sayings, Settlers, Sex, Slavery, Smoking, Soap, Society, Stoppers, Storage, Stuffing, Superstition, Symbolism, Tanning, Taxidermy, Toiletries, Tourism, Traders, Transport, Treaties/Projects/Schemes, Veterinary medicine, Walking sticks/umbrellas, etc., Waterfaring, Weapons, Weddings

*   as well as     nations/peoples, individuals, religions