The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World

John Chapman, also known as Johnny Appleseed, is a central character in the first chapter. Pollan attempts to unearth the real man behind this now Disney-ified character, and Pollan believes that Chapman was much more complex than the myths that have been passed down to us convey. For example, Chapman was not only a religious figure who believed the afterlife was prefigured in what occurs on earth (a philosophy called Swedenborgianism), but he was also a man who liked to drink and who brought seeds to settlers eager to produce alcoholic cider. Pollan likens Chapman to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and the wild, and he believes Chapman had a better understanding than most people of the way in which humans cannot control nature.

Phil Forsline is the curator of the Plant Genetic Resources Unit in Geneva, New York. At the facility, there are over 2,500 varieties of apple trees—the largest collection of different varieties of apple trees in the world. A horticulturist, Forsline has dedicated his career to saving and expanding the genetic diversity of the apple tree, as he believes that the shrinking diversity of the tree has made it less fit. 

Carolus Clusius was one of the first Europeans to receive tulips. He was a plantsman who spread many different flowers, including irises, hyacinths, ranunculi, and others. The director of the Imperial Botanical Garden in Vienna, he also set up a new garden in Leiden in 1593. When he arrived, tulips were already likely growing in at least one garden, but he was so unwilling to share his rare tulips that he made the Dutch covet them. Therefore, many of his plants were stolen at night, and they spread in this manner.