The Botany of Desire - Book Review

In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan proposes that we humans don’t really cultivate varieties of plants; rather, they evolved in ways as to maneuver us into helping them spread their seed. In exchange for our services, they provide us food; we benefit them at least as much as they benefit us.

He chronicles the journey of apples to America, and how they employed John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) to spread their seeds everywhere.

At one time the Dutch economy was based on the price of tulips, and they seduced the Dutch to value every characteristic outside the plain one-color single flower so much that the whole population assisted the tulips in multiplying their many varied genes and spread them all over the world.

Indians once grew 600 varieties of potatoes in the Andes Mountains of South America. We now grow mostly one, genetically modified, variety in sterile soil fertilized with petroleum products.

The section on Marijuana made me a little uncomfortable at first, but is a fascinating story of how a weed has manipulated humans into helping it evolve into a completely different plant over a very short time.

Michael Pollan provides tons of facts, a little opinion, and raises many questions that have given me a new perspective on food plants, gardening, and the future of food in the United States. I’ll plant 8 varieties of heirloom potatoes this year, and I might try making apple cider.