The Botany of Desire • Plant's are Nature's Alchemists

L J@ljnovascotia

“The four plants whose stories this book tells are what we call “domesticated species,” a rather one-sided term—that grammar again—that leaves the erroneous impression that we’re in charge. We automatically think of domestication as something we do to other species, but it makes just as much sense to think of ti as something certain plants and animals have done to us, a clever evolutionary strategy for advancing their own interests.

“Plants are nature’s alchemists, expert at transforming water, soil and sunlight into an array of precious substances, many of them beyond the ability of human beings to conceive, much less manufacture. While we were nailing down consciousness and learning to walk on two feet, they were, by the same process of natural selection, inventing photosynthesis (the astonishing trick of converting sunlight into food) and perfecting organic chemistry.”

—Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire