The Surprising ( And Perhaps Even Devious) Life Of Plants

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan

Michale Pollan has taken four fundamental human desires: sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control and shows how we have interacted with plants over thousands of years in the fulfillment of these desires.  In Pollan's fascinating look at four plants he asks the question "Are we choosing the plant, or is the plant choosing us?"  You may be surprised by the answer.  Four plants: apples (sweetness), tulips (beauty), marijuana (intoxication) and potatoes (control) are each examined in their own section with anecdotes, history and research woven in.  For instance, in the section about apples Pollan examines the role of Johnny Appleseed in the spread of apples across the country.  Apples (which historically have had a bad rap with the whole Eve thing) were planted by Appleseed not for eating, but for making scrumpy, a type of low alcohol cider.  People drank scrumpy instead of water as most water was unfit for drinking.  And here we have been thinking of Johnny Appleseed as some kind of evangelizing gardener!  Pollan also describes how the Red Delicious apple was accidentally discovered and why apple trees can't be grown from seed and remain true to the parent tree.  Pollan is an engaging writer and asks us to consider how when we change the world around us, it changes us.  Other titles by Pollan worth reading are In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, A Place of My Own: the Education of an Amateur Builder and Second Nature: A Gardener's Education.