A summary for teaching purposes.

1. The Botany of Desire
What do plants think of us?
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2. What Does the Title Mean?
• botany bot·a·ny [bot-n-ee]
• noun, plural bot·a·nies.
• 1.the science of plants; the branch of biology that deals with
plant life.
• 2.the plant life of a region: the botany of Alaska.
• 3.the biology of a plant or plant group: the botany of
deciduous trees.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/botany
• Botany is the study of plants. One does not have to be a
scientist to study plants. Gardeners, cooks, herbalists and
florists all take a great interest in plants. Plants serve a
function for them. Other people just enjoy plants. Feng shui
design encourages people to have certain plants in their
homes and offices. 2 Bertolino-Botany of Desire-Mosaic 852

3. Desire
Desire de·sire [dih-zahyuhr] verb (used with object)
• 1.to wish or long for; crave; want.
• 2.to express a wish to obtain; ask for; request: The mayor
desires your presence at the next meeting.
• Noun 3.a longing or craving, as for something that brings
satisfaction or enjoyment: a desire for fame.
• 4.an expressed wish; request.
• 5.something desired.
• Desire is often innate; we may not even be in touch with
what we think we want.
• Listen to some pop songs and notice how many use the
word desire, usually rhyming it with fire, higher, mire, liar.
Why does pop music focus so much on desire? Bertolino-Botany of Desire-Mosaic 852
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4. Apples=Sweetness
Tulips=Beauty
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5. Marijuana
=Intoxication
Potato
=Control
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6. Introduction: The Human Bumblebee
• The author, Michael Pollan, also serves as the narrator.
• The narrator wonders about his relationship to his garden: who
is in control?
• He decided that he coexists with his plants in a
“coevolutionary bargain ”similar to the one between the bee
and the apple tree. As he explains: “the two parties act on each
other to advance their individual interests but wind up trading
favors.” The bee takes the nectar from the apple blossoms, and
the apple pollinates other trees through the bee. Both the
species continue through mutual design and unconscious
agreement.(xiv)
• Pollan wonders if he shares a similar role to plants: did he
decide to plant them in his garden or did they his choice by
appealing to his desire for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and
control?
• He decides to write the book from the plant‟s point of view as a
way to determine how they continued to survive. He sees each
study as a journey of evolutionary triumph for eachBertolino-Botany of Desire-Mosaic 852
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plant.

7. What is Coevolution?
• Coevolution: a process in which two or more different species reciprocally
effect each other‟s evolution. For example, species A evolves, which
causes species B to evolve, which causes species A to evolve, which
causes species B to evolve and so on.
• Coevolution is likely to happen when different species have close ecological
interactions with one another. These ecological relationships include:
• 1. Predator/prey and parasite/host
• 2.Competitive species (when both are struggling to dominate)
• 3. Mutualistic species (a species interaction in which both of the interacting
species profit from the interaction)
• Plants and insects represent a classic case of coevolution—one that is
often, but not always, mutualistic. Many plants and their pollinators are
so reliant on one another and their relationships are so exclusive that
biologists have good reason to think that the “match” between the two
is the result of a coevolutionary process.
(http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIFCoevolution.shtml)
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8. Chapter 1: Desire-Sweetness, Plant--
Apple
• Why do we desire sweetness in our lives?
• It is not the same as intoxication in which we want
to forget our problems: sweetness is something
innate to our survival. Once it was a way for us to
generate enough calories to survive when food
was difficult to find.
• Apples were not always sweet. Their taste varied
from acidic to tart to bitter to nutlike.
• Pollan believes we have lost our sense of
sweetness by latching onto fake tastes that
resemble what our ancestors might have called
sweet.
• Chemicals in food have taken away our ability to
recognize a sweet taste. Sweetness has been
domesticated just like the apple.
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9. John Chapman/Johnny Appleseed
• He traveled from Pennsylvania through central Ohio to
Indiana by foot, planting apple trees
• Originally from Longmeadow, Massachusetts.
• He planted apple trees on the frontier so that settlers would
be drawn to live there. He sold the trees to the settlers, then
moved on.
• He was selling something everyone needed by law: „a land
grant in the Northwest Territory specifically required a settler
to set out at least 50 apple or pear trees…for his deed. The
purpose was to dampen real estate speculation by
encouraging homesteaders to put down roots.” (16)
• Since so many of the apples were bitter, they became hard
cider. Johnny Appleseed brought alcohol to the frontier.
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10. Chapter 2: Desire: Beauty/Plant:
Tulip
• The tulip was the first flower Pollan ever planted.
• He believes that beauty is part of an evolutionary design for
survival.
• Psychiatrists regard a patient’s indifference to flowers as a
symptom of clinical depression. (64)
• Flowers may indicate the nearby presence of food, which is why
they figure prominently as an evolutionary component of survival
for man.
• The beauty of the flower makes it attractive to bees for pollination.
Flowers have gender roles, male and female, but do not
reproduce among themselves. They need others for reproduction,
so that their species will continue.
• Symmetry in a plant is an extravagance and nature would not take
the time for it if it didn’t garner a result, which is luring bees to the
flowers for pollination. So even the shape of the flower is by
design.
• Pollan calls roses, peonies, orchids and tulips “our canonical
flowers, the Shakespeares, Miltons and Tolstoys of the plant
Bertolino-Botany of Desire-Mosaic 852
world.”(78) 10

11. Chapter 3: Desire: Intoxication/Plant:
Marijuana
• Pollan begins the chapter with a brief discussion of the
forbidden plant, referring to Genesis.
• He is not speaking in metaphor: some plants are poisonous
and important to avoid. Others may cause undesirable
reactions in the body(medicinal plants) as well as alter
consciousness.
• Taste is generally the first clue: plants that shouldn‟t be eaten
have a bitter taste. Plants that are appropriate for consumption
like the apple have a pleasant taste.
• Pollan discusses the variety of reactions from noxious
chemicals: nicotine paralyzes pests, caffeine unhinge the
nervous system. Hallucinogens in plants like datura and
henbane can drive plant predator‟s insane.
• We can ask: why are we attracted to forbidden plants? We can
also ask: why do we desire to change our consciousness?
These two questions may explain our interest in marijuana.
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12. Marijuana
• Until the government cracked down through the war on drugs, most American-smoked
marijuana was grown in Mexico.
• Americans who planted the seeds spouted plants poorly adapted for northern survival.
• Growers found one strain, indica, that flourished farther north. They hybridized it with
the another strain, sativa, This changed the genetic pattern in cannabis, by bringing
the two strains of cannabis together .
• Reagan‟s drug war pushed growers indoors, where they perfected the hybrid under
grow lights.
• In the ‟60s a neuroscientist identified THC, the chemical compound responsible for the
psychoactive effects of marijuana.
• In 1988,researcher discovered the brain‟s receptor for THC. Scientists explained the
receptors by theorizing that the brain must manufacture its own THC-like chemical.
• In ‟92 they found it: anandamide, the brain‟s own version of cannabis . Its effects
include pain relief, short-term memory loss, sedation, and mild cognitive impairment.
• There seems to be an evolutionary impulse for man to find chemicals to help him
endure his pain and forget misery, despite the cost to memory and motor skills.
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16. Chapter 4: Desire: Control/Plant: The
Potato
• Much of this chapter deals with genetic engineering,
genetic modification and the company Monsanto.
• The potato is a staple of our diet. One can survive with
potatoes and milk.
• Our concern with control of the potato echoes our
need to control the environment for our benefit and our
survival. One could argue that it is a result of natural
selection.
• Yet our need to control our food supply for our survival
may backfire and lead to contamination of food by
tainting the nutrients and possibly causing long term
harm. If control is the concern, do people have the
right to refuse genetically modified food if they do not
trust it? 16 Bertolino-Botany of Desire-Mosaic 852

17. GMOS and the Potato
• Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which have had
their genome changed by scientists, are transforming the
food system.
• Already, tens of millions of acres of American farmland have
been planted in corn, soybeans, cotton and potatoes
genetically modified to produce their own insecticide (insect
killer) or to survive herbicide (plant killer).
• Industry touts GMOs as revolutionary enough to be
patented, yet they balk at requirements for labeling or further
study as they insist the changes are minimal.
• Genetic modification can add a gene or remove a gene from
a certain crop. The short and long-term effects of these
procedures are unknown. It also invites a question of ethics:
do we have the right to alter nature‟s design?
• Monsanto is the corporation that is known for genetic
modification of food.
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