I love these two books by Dr.Richard Mabey. They’re amazing in redirecting your understanding for plants, their rich lives, and how the story of plants is completely entwined with cultural history. For instance, in the book Weeds he shows how weeds become weeds – undesired and a ‘problem’ – in the meeting with culture and human fashions.
Many plants that were once, in some cases hundreds of years ago, imported as ornamental garden plants, are now considered weeds and even invasive species. He connects this to large and important topics like globalisation and trade, and subtly weaves a picture together of larger world mechanism though always starting from the plant: “Across the world global trade has introduced a whole new class of cosmopolitan(s) (…) Japanese knotweed was introduced to Britain in Victorian times, as an elegant shrub for the woodland garden. In not much more than a century we’ve become blind to its delicate flower tassels and gracious leaf sprays, and now regard it as the most dangerously invasive plant in the country”. (Weeds, p. 4)
Both books are very though-provoking, but in a quiet and entertaining way. Richard Mabey has a Doctorate from Oxford University and has studied and written about plants for decades.
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