This book The Botany of Desire by
Michael Pollan works on an interesting premise. He chose to focus four domesticated
plants namely Apple, Tulip, Cannabis, and Potato, each representing an important
class of domesticated plants i.e., a fruit, a flower, a drug, and a staple food, to trace its social and natural history. These ‘domesticated’ plants took “advantage
of one particular animal that had evolved not only to move freely around the
earth, but to think and trade complicated thoughts. These plants hit on a remarkable
clever strategy: getting us to move and think for them”. Its about exploring social
natural history from plant's perspective. As Pollan puts it “That’s why it makes
just as much sense to think of agriculture as something the grasses did to
people as a way to conquer the trees”. Phew, figure that!
