Wierzbowski 1 Megan Wierzbowski Hon.

Humanities January 29, 2010 Botany of Desire In this educational nature and gardening book, The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan tells a not so average story of how plants, which can be found in most average gardens, can have such an impact, or rather us have an impact, on plant life as we know it today. He tells short stories, myths, and just average facts about four plants that are prospering in todays cultures the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. He attributes these plants with corresponding desires that not only animals have, but most evident in humans apples with sweetness, tulips with beauty, marijuana with intoxication, and potatoes with control. This book shows how not just plants, but society, is governed by these specific rules, finesse, and physical attributes you have to abide by to prosper in the world today. Throughout the book, Pollan, talks about how certain plants keep in with the same acceptable attributes the plant must obtain and flaunt to survive in the world today. He gives the idea that plants and people learned to use each other, each doing for the other things they could not do for themselves (Pollan 4). Plants, animals, insects, as well as humans coexist in society. Today, our plants, as well as our societies, are a monoculture; this means that we favor one specific thing and we want only that thing. Humanities is not only apparent in the art of gardening/planting, but also that we coexist with these other creatures, other beings, in our world today. This book may help break down prejudices and of once unacceptable things, and turn them into not just acceptable, but coveted qualities.

Wierzbowski 2 The first chapter (rather large considering there are only four chapters one dedicated to each plant) is about the apple. Pollan starts off by talking about Johnny Chapman, AKA Johnny Appleseed, and how he lived off the land, and planted apple trees everywhere he went rather strategically I may add. Johnnys plan was to plant tree nurseries everywhere he went (with controversial reasons why he decided to specifically plant apple seeds some believed it to be just his passions, other for the use to create cider). He was against the grafting of trees since the seedlings of apples rendered completely different genes and characteristics (most likely repulsive to taste) of the parent apples, the only way to know that you would get an edible apple was to graft trees (basically clones). Chapman went against the grain of others and planted these seedlings, knowing how they turn out in their adult years, and went on to prosper in the business of selling apple trees. Anyway, this is where the idea of sweetness as a human desire comes in. The dictionary definition of sweet affords enjoyment or gratifies desire (17), sweetness is a desire we have, and that is exactly what the apple offered Americans in Chapmans time, and the desire it helped gratify (16). Evolution, as well as the nomadic lifestyle, curiosity and desires that humans possessed in the olden days, helped the apple prosper into what we think of the apple today. As humans, we have desires, and those desires are built into the very nature and purpose of fruit (19) as well as many other things, that control out actions. The apples took our needs into consideration, according to Pollan, and used our needs as a gateway for them to flourish, as well as fulfill our needs and desire of sweetness. Apples developed two very ingenious systems that helped them flourish. The apple trees help off developing sweetness and color until the seeds had fully matured (19) as well as make the seeds inedible giving off an extremely bitter taste, as well as the idea that each different seed contained different genes so that the apple

Wierzbowski 3 could change and mix their genes to come up with the right characteristics to grow according to that weather. Today in the twenty-first century, we market and sell only a small amount of the apples that are living in the world today. We have come up with ideas of what an apple should taste like, and the amount of sweetness it should contain, and we do not want disengage our ideas of the right apple. This is the same in society; where we do not want to lower of standards to accept everyone for who they are, as well as what they choose to do it life. The second chapter is about tulips and how they correspond to the desire of beauty. Pollan goes on to talk about how he had grown up with the tulip, planting it in his mothers garden, and always cherished it, until he realized that they werent the prettiest and interesting flowers in the garden. He talks about the ancient history and stories of the tulip, mostly because it was more cherished and prized back then. In fact, one of the stories is about how in Turkey, societies coveted this tulip, and how its name actually comes from the Turkish word for turban (98). The tulip has been reinvented every century or so to reflect our shifting ideals of beauty (61). Tulips are one of the bizarre flowers, according to color, that is in our lands. They constantly are having bursts of colors on their petals that we humans seem to find so fascinating. Throughout time and history we have seen the tulip as a beautiful flower, and have drooled over the many colors it produces (even though the magical colors are brought in by a virus of the plant). Beauty of the tulip is not only thought of as the colors it has, but also the symmetry it has. The tulip is a linear, left-brained sort of flower (97), yet portrays right-brain qualities; like the colors it comes in. Humans have used the variations and the ease of hybridizing and mutating these plants into colors that are popular at the time.

Wierzbowski 4 Beauty does not just have a pretty image anymore. Evolutionary biologists believe that in many creatures, beauty of a reliable indicator of health, (74) and this may be true for humans as well. Before the flowers, beauty did not exist as we think of it today. The desires of other creatures, like humans, became paramount in the evolution of plants (108). When the flowers came, they needed transportation of their seeds to pollinate, again developing an ingenious system that helped them prosper. Beauty emerged as a survival strategy (108). The third chapter was on marijuana (cannabis). This chapter was about how humans desire intoxication, and what marijuana, and other drugs, do to the mind and body. As human beings, we live in a world of consciousness, and intoxication subjects us to experiences of a fantasy world (114). Pollan again goes on about the history of marijuana. In the early days of witches and sorceries, people grew or gathered sacred plants with powers to inspire visions or conduct them on a journey to other worlds (118) and also used these psychoactive plants to cast spells and such. This was mostly a tribal thing, but also while ago here in the Unites States, 100 years back or so, marijuana was not thought to be such an appalling pastime and was actually socially acceptable. When the effects of marijuana started to become more and more disgusted in society, the government banned it, but for people who really wanted to keep smoking marijuana they had to turn to other ways to obtain this psychoactive plant; since growing it was illegal and now more then ever it was actually taken seriously. This created the American drug wars. This was not so bad for the actual plant of marijuana, as the American drug war presented an opportunity to expand marijuana into North America (130). But since domestic marijuana was grossly inferior to the imported product the plant needed two things to succeed here: prove it could gratify a human desire so people would take extraordinary risks to cultivate

Wierzbowski 5 it and also to find the right combination of genes to adapt to a most peculiar and thoroughly new environment (130). Marijuana is deeply rooted in the human desire of pleasure (138), and that makes it one of the most long lasting desires we have. This desire to alter ones consciousness is actually universal. When you do something good for someone, your brain triggers certain chemicals that make you feel good, and people use psychoactive plants to artificially trip the brains reward system (141). But some effects of marijuana has on the mind and body is actually very interesting. It is known to alter: the cerebral cortex (locus of higher-order thought), the hippocampus (memory), basal ganglia (movement), and the amygdale (emotions) (153). In fact, the researcher, Allyn Howlet, discovered a specific receptor for THC in the brain, and he speculated that the cannabinoid system evolved to help us endure (and selectively forget) the routine slings and arrows of life (155). The fourth, and final, chapter was about the potato and how humans desire control.