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

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Co-evolution of Plants and Humans

This book takes an interesting approach. It is not just about the way in which humans affect the evolution of certain plants but the way in which the plants also affect humans. Pollan takes what might be called a “plant-centric” view to explain the way the apple, tulip, marijuana plant, and potato have evolved over time. He makes the plants actors in this drama.

His contention is that as much as we act on plants, they also act on us, though not consciously, of course. For example, people’s desire for sweetness and for cider in the days before mass-produced junk food made settlers want to sow apple seeds on the frontier, giving rise to a new breed of tree. Therefore, we evolved along with the apples, and they affected human development as we affected them. Pollan’s conception of evolution is that it is not only human directed or directed only by natural selection but is a complex process in which we and the plants both act on each other. By turning the lens around to focus on the plants’ point of view, he is changing the way we look at evolution. In addition, he is subverting the usual dichotomy between humans and nature. Instead, in his view, humans and nature are not in a struggle but are actors in an ongoing story in which they both have the power to act on each other.

The Definition of Beauty

Pollan tries to dig into what humans find beautiful, and he finds different reasons for our love of flowers, which are almost universally regarded as beautiful. Some of these answers come from the realm of biological psychology. For example, he says that flowers were associated with future fruit, so ancient humans, who were foragers, would have regarded a flower as beautiful because it signaled a choice fruit was on the way. Beauty in the case of the tulip craze in 17th century Holland—or tulipomania—was also the result of scarcity, as the tulips that were most prized. Those that had strange color bursts and were referred to as “broken” (88) were rare.

Beauty was also associated with the combination of the Dionysian (what is wild and passionate) with the Apollonian (what is orderly and logical). The tulip is an embodiment of these contrasts, as its orderly form was disrupted by a Dionysian burst of color in the specimens that were prized in 17th century Holland. The tulip is one of the flowers, along with the rose, peony, and orchid, that has achieved what Pollan refers to as “canonical” (61) status because of its qualities that are associated with beauty.

Modern Gardening Versus Gardens in the Past

Pollan makes the point that the way gardeners grow their choice plants and flowers today is quite different from the way people did so in the past. The author, himself a gardener, states that most people today grow for aesthetic reasons. They plant what they consider beautiful, and their gardens are for show, mainly.

In the past, gardens were different. Many were apothecaries that grew medicinal or hallucinogenic plants. Gardeners were often shamans whose plants had magic powers, and aesthetics were often secondary to utility or even a sense of magic. The exception is the Dutch gardens of the 17th century, which were "jewel boxes" (86) cultivated with the idea of planting the rarest and most prized specimens, including tulips.

Pollan also examines the way in which plants’ diversity and variation have changed. He notes that even plants we consider familiar, such as the apple and the tulip, looked quite different in the past, which we know from looking at "paintings and botanical illustrations" (79). The apple tree, for example, had many more varieties in America in the past, when it was often grown for fruit to make cider, and the tulip, once affected by a virus, had different forms in the past as well.