Botany of Desire

Jane's Review

Pollan researches - and grows - four plants we think we know: taking us back through time to their origins, their importance to our cultures, their changing us as much as we changed them.

Those plants are the apple, tulip, potato, and most eloquently, marijuana. Each has mutated to attract pollinators and to satisfy "the ideals of fashion" shaping themselves to human desires - thereby insuring their survival..

Most apples we see in our markets are produced for their ability to be shipped, color, and size. They have been selectively grown it to fit our idea of apple perfection. The tastiest apples may not look the best.

l7th century Holland's economy was based mainly on tulips.In 1608 a French miller exchanged his entire mill for one special bulb. Botany was followed as avidly as sports today. There was no reasoning behind this obsession as it had no medical use, nor edibility. It was all about appearances. Eventually a virus hit the tulip fields causing financial disaster.

A member of the nightshade family, the potato was thought to cause leprosy, immorality - cursed because it came from wild America - wasn't named in the Bible - all reasons not to be eaten. Nutritiously complete, It turned out to be the best treasure brought from the new world, ending scurvy in Europe. At one time considered a "threat to civilization" the potato could support larger families, lowering wages, was "primitive" not "refined" as was wheat which man transformed.

When only one type of potato was grown in Ireland, a virus destroyed all potatoes in a single night, causing famine and death. 1 in 8 Irish died. Emigration was often the only option.

Pollan makes a strong case against monoculture. Diversity protects us .

Monsanto has developed a pesticide potato impervious to pests. No research has been done to report the long-term effects when eaten. Pollen from GMO corn is lethal to monarch butterflies. To all of this we have been told "trust us." The Union of Concerned Scientists says "no research has been done." FDA says this potato is "not a food".

Agent Orange, anyone? Nuclear waste? We trusted then, too.

Then there are the biological pollutants like kudzu, mussels, dutch elm disease, all brought to the US by humans and now out of control.

Pollan devotes the remainder of his remarkable book to marijuana. He asks why it is mostly illegal? What does it do that threatens society?

Marijuana has evolved with humankind for 10 thousand years. No one has died from an overdose of marijuana, which gives the gift of forgetting in this world of overload.

Being in the present moment, dreaming while awake, are gifts from marijuana. It brings a different reality, one where the emperor has no clothes. This is the reason for the illegality of a plant used for medical, religious and recreational purposes for thousands of years.

Current society's meme is about the future, marijuana is about relaxing into the present moment.

Tampering with nature in plants may not "take us somewhere we want to be." Pollan advises we'd be wise to "save and seed all manner of plant genes" not just the most beautiful, the most perfect. Let's not "shrink the diversity of life". As he points out, we're all in this together, plants and humans.

Highly recommended.