Curing Plant Blindness: A Review of “In Defense of Plants: An Exploration into the Wonder of Plants”

Abstract

When you look out across a landscape, do you see the plants as organisms engaged in the great struggles of life? Or do you see them as simply part of the scenery? Now consider a landscape teeming with animal life. Despite the fact the plants in that landscape would outnumber the animals by several orders of magnitude, your focus would be on the animals. People tend to see animals as dynamic actors and plants as a passive and static background. Even when we do notice the plants in our world, it is often for their utility to us. This is plant blindness, a concept originated by botanists J. H. Wandersee and E.E. Schussler. Simply put, people tend to ignore the plants in their environment and view them as uninteresting and inferior forms of life. In his book In Defense of Plants: An Exploration into the Wonder of Plants, ecologist, author, blogger, and podcaster Matt Candeias has made it his mission to cure us of plant blindness, to open our eyes so that we see plants as he does: as dynamic organisms worthy of our study, fascination, and respect for their own sakes.