People-Plant Relationships

Setting Research Priorities

Raymond P Poincelot, Joel Flagler

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351425506
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences biologiques
• Subtopic: Botanique

Presenting the latest research on cross-cultural people-plant relationships, this volume conveys the psychological, physiological, and social responses to plants and the significant role these responses play in improved physical and mental health. With chapters written by field experts, it identifies research priorities and methodologies and outlines the steps for developing a research agenda to aid horticulturalists in their work with social scientists to gain a better understanding of people-plant relationships. This resource covers a wide array of topics including home horticulture and Lyme disease, indoor plants and pollution reduction, and plants and therapy.

PLANTS AND HUMAN CULTURE

Chapter 1

Plants and Human Culture

Candice A. Shoemaker

SUMMARY. Historically and presently, plants serve an intimate role in human culture. They influence language, art and literature; performing arts and modern mass media; politics and world events. Plants serve as symbols in many celebrations and rituals such as holidays, weddings, and funerals. Understanding the past and current roles plants have in human culture can provide insights into society’s values and can ensure a continued relationship between plants and people. This paper is a commentary on the relationship between plants and human culture and a review of current research on this topic.

The green plant is fundamental to all other life. Humankind could perish from this planet and plants of all kinds would continue to grow and thrive. In contrast, the disappearance of plants would be accompanied by the disappearance of all animal life, including humankind.

We are very aware of our need for plants for basic survival. The oxygen we breathe, the nutrients we consume, the fuels we burn, many of the most important materials we use, are all related to plant life. Plants provide all of our food, either directly or indirectly. They are also utilized as a source of construction materials for our homes and work sites. Raw plant materials are used in the manufacture of fabrics and paper and such synthetics as plastics and rayon. We have come to depend upon many of the complex substances that plants produce-dyes, tannins, waxes, resins, flavorings, medicines, and drugs. In general, plants are necessary to satisfy our basic instinct for survival by providing food, fiber, and shelter.

Early humans, from the beginning, depended upon botanical knowledge for existence (Janick 1992). They understood the life cycles of plants, knew the seasons of the year, and when and where the natural plant food resources could be harvested in greatest abundance with the least effort. They spun fibers, wove cloth, and made string, cord, baskets, canoes, shields, spears, bows and arrows, and a variety of household utensils. They were familiar with a variety of drug and medicinal plants. As they used plants and plant material for survival and to make life more comfortable, they also used plants in ceremonies and rituals, in pictures, and to make musical instruments.

The development of civilization and the development of agriculture coincide. The development of civilization, or culture, was possible due to the “invention” of agriculture. As crop production became more and more efficient, less time was needed to provide for food and shelter and more time was provided for activities such as contemplation, poetry, and art.

The discovery of agriculture is remarkable for two reasons (Janick 1992). One is its universality, that is, agriculture is an independent discovery throughout many parts of the world. For example, we find each great ancient civilization based on grain-wheat in Europe and the near East, rice in Asia, maize in the Americas, and sorghum in Africa. The second remarkable aspect of agriculture is the ability of each population in selecting out the desirable species and domesticating them.

The idea of universality can also be related to the use of plants for things other than survival. Flowers have been used for centuries and still are used extensively in ceremonies for expression of joy, affection, welcome, gratitude, sympathy, celebration, grief, friendship, marital union, or spiritual contemplation. For example, in this country many people associate gladiolus with funerals, the rose with Valentine’s Day, and mistletoe with Christmas.

McDonald and Bruce (1992) showed that we associate horticultural elements with holidays. For example, when asked to describe a Christmas scene, 82 percent of the respondents included a horticultural element in the description. Also, subjects rated Christmas descriptions that included a horticultural element as more meaningful and enjoyable than descriptions that excluded horticultural elements. Many of our holidays-both secular and religious-are rich in plant symbolism. We toast the New Year with champagne, bake a cherry pie for President’s Day, and give roses on Valentine’s Day. What is Easter without an Easter Lily, Halloween without a pumpkin and Christmas without a Christmas tree?

Plants influence our language, art, and literature, as well as the performing arts, and modern mass media. Through language, we refer to plants everyday. For example, as researchers we want to “get to the root of the problem,” sometimes get “stumped,” we may be told by a “branch research station” that it is a “thorny problem,” and finally realize we “can’t compare apples and oranges.” For more examples of “plant talk” refer to Bryant’s (1992) review.

Poetry and literature are filled with reference to plants. In Shakespeare’s writing, over 200 plants are mentioned. Shakespeare displays an intimate knowledge of plant growth, propagation, grafting, pruning, manuring, weeding, ripening, and decay (Janick 1992). The horticultural imagery and allusions have become part of our culture and fuse plant lore and literature.

What has the industrial revolution done to our relationship with plants? Are we close to being cut off from direct contact with plant life? Our athletic fields have been stripped of grass and replaced with astroturf, our bouquets are silk flowers, and open spaces are being eaten up by buildings and roads.

Our arrival on the moon provided a perspective of the Earth we never had before-as a very small part of space but beautiful and precious. We needed to start taking care of it. The ecology movement has grown and with it more and more people are becoming aware of this very important relationship between people and plants.

When considering plants and human culture, we must study past and current relationships between plants and people to ensure a direct relationship in the future.

Studying the role plants have had in the development of our culture may help us understand our current position. We can look at what the role of plants was in art and what it is today. How were plants used? What plants were used? Why? What were they symbolizing? These same questions can be asked regarding the many rituals, ceremonies, and celebrations we have that have plants in them. For example, Rosenfield (1992) studied the role of gardens in civic virtue in the Italian Renaissance. He concluded that the Renaissance garden afforded its visitors the temporary repose thought to restore mental vitality, it lent a sense of tranquility, and demonstrated the rewards of detachment and the ability to shift one’s perspective. Today, research is being conducted on these very ideas (Kaplan 1992). Specifically, Kaplan is studying what makes an environment serve a restorative function, something that appears to be similar to the purpose of the Renaissance garden.

This age of high technology, too much stress, over-working, and fast pace, can be exhausting. If research shows the restorative value of nature, what company wouldn’t include plants as a critical component of their business? The corporate world has begun to see the value of plants in the work place. How many office buildings do you walk in today that are not plantscaped? Corporate America has also seen the value of well-developed grounds and public access to the grounds. The attitude is that gardens and well-groomed, park-like settings enhance the corporate image (Parker 1992). Gardens in the work place can be a means to accomplish profit, serve human needs, and be an element of social responsibility.

Within the arts, plants have frequently been used in paintings as potent vehicles for symbolism (Cremone and Doherty 1992). Artists have often utilized flowers to convey religious, moral, or social lessons. Such floral symbolism included the lily illustrating purity, the carnation representing fidelity, and the tulip indicating greed. Religious doctrines were also given botanical symbols: wheat became a metaphor for life, jasmine symbolized Divine love, and the passion-flower recalled the instruments of the Passion of Christ.

Plants are often at the center of political debate and controversy. Tobacco smoking is the topic of heated, social debate today. Thirty years ago smoking was an acceptable social behavior in all public places and today it is illegal in most public buildings. “Clearcutting” and other forestry practices have their vocal critics and active opponents. The hole in the ozone and the “greenhouse effect” suggest that “clearcutting” and the rampant development of land in this century may be dramatically affecting the fine balance of nature. The results are changes in human behavior-recycling, renewing, reusing are the mantra of the 1990’s. Clearly, the human/plant relationship can be a matter of serious, social consequence.

Obviously, plants have been a part of human culture since the beginning of time and will more than likely continue to be. Plants are a part of the social world as well as the physical world. Therefore, it is not surprising that they influence human behavior and that human culture is imprinted with a botanical reality.

REFERENCES

Bryant, C. 1992. ‘Plant talk’: Some notes on the Botanical Bent of American Language. HortTechnology 3(1).

Cremone, J. & Doherty, R. 1992. Vita Brevis: Moral symbolism from nature. In The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-Being and Social Development, edited by P.D. Relf. Timber Press.

Janick, J. 1992. Horticulture and human culture. In The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-Being and Social Development, edited by P.D. Relf. Timber Press.

Kaplan, S. 1992. The restorative environment: nature and human experience. In The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-Being and Social Development, edited by P.D. Relf. Timber Press.

McDonald, B. & Bruce, A.J. 1992. Can you have a merry Christmas without a tree? In The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-Being and Social Development, edited by P.D. Relf. Timber Press.

Parker, D. 1992. The corporate garden. In The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-Being and Social Development. Timber Press.

Rosenfield, L. 1992. Gardens and civic virtue in the Italian Renaissance. In The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-Being and Social Development, edited by P.D. Relf. Timber Press.

Chapter 2

American Women and Their Gardens: A Study in Health, Happiness, and Power, 1600-1900

Judith Schwartz

SUMMARY. In looking at historical perspectives of the people-plant relationship, accepted histories must be re-read with a fresh outlook, as this subject is not usually documented as such. Women’s history must also be pulled from between the lines of already-written volumes in which their stories are largely omitted, although alluded to occasionally. The special relationship that women share with plants, horticulture, agriculture, botany, etc., can be traced from mythological and biblical stories and allusions through the centuries. The history of women in America, from 1600 to 1900, coincides with the development of “western” horticulture in this country, specifically in terms of personal and public health, happiness and social position (i.e., power)-which are primary manifestations of the people-plant relationship. The pursuit of this research is often like the proverbial “looking for a needle in a haystack,” although undocumented and sentimental appraisals of women’s relationship to plants abound, especially in histories of the early years of our nation. The virtually non-existent literacy rate among Colonial women makes early, first-hand accounts very rare. Prescriptive literature written by men does, how...