The Botany Of Desire By Michael Pollen

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan is an interesting perspective of how humans over the centuries have filled certain desires through the use of plants. The apple represents the desire for sweetness, the tulip for beauty, marijuana for intoxication, and the potato for control. Pollan discusses the point and importance of these four plants and their development throughout history. Chapter 1: Desire: Sweetness/ Plant: The Apple This chapter goes into depth talking about the spread of the apple in the United States, and all over the world.

It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”, these are the quotes of the famous German physicist Albert Einstein in relation to how the world has become overly reliant on technology. As a result, we have taken nature for granted while also ignoring the adverse effects of technology. The making of steam engine, the usage of fossil fuel and the creation of chlorofluorocarbon are all technologies which has benefited us greatly and are continuing to do so, but like everything on this earth there are always negatives to counter the positives This is the balance that we must find between nature and humans.

In the novel, The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan tells the intriguing story of how plants are domesticated from the perspective of the plant with regards to four specific plants.. The four plants he chose for discussion are the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. As he discusses the domestication of these plants, his overall focus is the desire that each of these plants have to us as humans. Pollan has written books and magazine articles among other pieces of literature that discuss the relationship between plants and humans. Throughout this informational text, Pollan tries to keep the perspective from the “plant’s-eye view of the world,” but he often slips into Pollan’s eye view of the world. As he talks about experiences that he has had with each of these plants and gives a little bit of their history, it was often hard to stay focused on the topic that he was trying to convey. However, I found that the perspectives that Pollan brings up are interesting to think about. The Botany of Desire was an interesting journal type informational novel that didn’t quite live up to my expectations of what it could have been.

The digestive system absorbs the minerals and nutrients from the foods that have been eaten. The break down of food beings in the mouth, where the

One might ask how the scientific facts of the functional purpose of a plant would connect to a literary piece, especially the well-known play, A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry. The plant in the text symbolizes the foundation for the family, honest hope, and Mama's dreams. Symbolism is not a definition of an item, but represents something specific other than itself. Much like Mama's plant, it represents many meaningful ideas with supportive evidence throughout the text. The plant standing alone may seem like a generic addition to the setting of the Younger household, but when it is observed in a deeper analytical approach; the symbolism of it in itself holds such

     Since the beginning of the human race mankind has depended on the natural resources in their environment for survival. They utilized the available flora to nourish their body, heal their wounds, comfort their ailments and to create products to ease their daily lives. Many of the same plants utilized thousands of years ago by the indigenous people have been integrated into modern day medicines. The scientific interest and knowledge of plants for nourishment, healing, and practical uses is called ethnobotany.

Every garden has their own purposes that make gardeners devote a great amount of time to take care of them. Gardeners are coming up with their own unique ways of taking care of their gardens, especially when they make profits out of it. In his book, The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan claims the best gardeners of his generation have devoted themselves to growing cannabis, popularly known as marijuana. Intrigued with Pollan’s argument, I completely agree with him. Marijuana growers are the best gardeners because they perfected the plant in growing them indoors, they make good business out of it, and the plant itself fills the need of humans for transcendent altered states of consciousness.

Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s View of the World, addresses four major plant groups that have both changed for human needs and simultaneously changed human’s needs. While most gardeners, genetic engineers and other plant related professionals have long-believed that plants have evolved based on what we want or need to survive and in other words what we have “domesticated”, Pollan appeals to the plant’s view. Plants’ survival has been solely based on what humans desire both depending on their visual and stimulatory appeal along with their appeal to an appetite. Conversely, plants have used humans as a strategy for “getting us to move and think for them (page xx)”. Many plants have successfully maneuvered humans for

In the book, Botany of desire, chapter 2, Michael Pollan describes the relationship between humans and tulips in 17th century. At the beginning of the chapter, Michael introduces the tulips and then, he start talking about the big event happened in Dutch. It is the most typical case of bubble economy, and it made a lot of impact.

The digestive system are organs converting food into energy and basic nutrients to feed the entire body.

The digestive and excretory systems help the body with the wonderful task of food. The digestive system is composed of the stomach, mouth, liver, pancreas, and the large and small intestine. It digests food and provides the

Since the 17th Century the U.S. Botanic Garden has been a symbol of our job to support the fragile life of plants and the fragile life they support. Today there is an even better need to have an understanding of plants and their needs. If people can understand the history of the Botanic Garden and what it stands for then people will be able to grow to understand plants, their jobs, their role in human life, and why plants are important to humans as a whole (About

The desire for which this plant represents is control and this seemingly simple plant has a history of providing control. A history that goes back almost 8000 years. The human need to have things in order whether its fear of the unknown complexities of nature, or perhaps the beauty we see in neat, ordered rows, or more simply the control over starvation, whichever it is humans want the control. Pollan often refers to this human trait when comparing the Apollonian and Dionysian model throughout the book. The Apollonian aesthetic order in humans and nature’s Dionysian uncertainty as disorder is inevitable.

Humans have taken naturally growing plants and improved them for our own gain through selective breeding, Domestication.

The digestive system is very important in digesting food and breaking it down so it can be digested easily. The digestive system turns food into energy. Throughout the process there are nutrients which are absorbed. There are many things that contributed to the digestive system such as the mouth which produces saliva which helps to break down food and nutrients such as carbohydrates with the help of an enzyme called amylase. The major food groups which are called macro nutrients include carbohydrates, proteins and fats. All of these nutrients play an important role in the body. There are also many micro-nutrients which include vitamins and minerals which provide the body with health and well-being. The digestive system is made up of the mouth, which includes the teeth (the teeth are used to cut and grind food into smaller pieces, they contain blood vessels and nerves), tongue (the tongue is a muscle that has a rough surface including the taste buds), salvia glands (they produce salvia which moistens the food to make is easier to digest), the pharynx (this helps the food travel to the stomach, the pharynx also plays an important role in the respiratory system. It also contains 2 different flaps to separate the 2 functions), esophagus (this connects the pharynx to the stomach and transports chewed food to the stomach), stomach (this is a muscle that is