A History of the Water Hyacinth in Africa: The Flower of Life and Death from 1800 to the Present, by Jeremiah Mutio Kitunda

A History of the Water Hyacinth in Africa, authored by Jeremiah Mutio Kitunda, investigates in an encyclopaedic survey the water hyacinth (Eichhornia Crassipes) as a plant originally imported from South America and as one of the environmental scourges and threats to African waterscapes since the late eighteenth century. An overarching theme of the book is that, while it is predominantly about the history of the water hyacinth’s transfer to many parts of Africa, it at the same time constantly interrogates the varying implications of what the plant means to different people at different times in terms of whether it is a dangerous or life-threatening weed, a herb, a flower of ornamental value, or a flower of life. For Kitunda, the hyacinth has gone through a transformation over time, from an ornamental plant to a vexatious pest (p. 6). In this sense, his work is a significant and refreshing exploration of the interaction between humanity and the natural environment. Although it is true that hyacinth evolved from a mere object of beauty to an insidious weed responsible for choking many of Africa’s waterways, a positive that can be drawn from it is that it has challenged people to find ways to either control or utilise it (profitably), thus bringing it back into the fold as a human ally according to Heather J. Hoag.1