Wild life? OK, so why is it just animals?

Apparently the Wildlife Photography of the year contest is only open to people who suffer from plant blindness.  Plants apparently are neither wild nor alive. Maybe these guys used to work for the Department of Natural Resources here in Lincolnland who told TPP's academic counterpart that the wild life preservation grant program wasn't going to fund any grants to preserve tall grass prairie because native plants aren't wildlife!  Even though there's less than 1% of the prairie left in our state, and where do you suppose the REAL wildlife, you know prairie chickens, prairie dogs, etc. used to live?  Nonetheless some of the photos are amazing, especially the penguins and blue ice. 

What makes plants interesting to students?

A long time colleague used to say that it takes a certain mental and emotional maturity and sophistication to appreciate something as subtly interesting as plants. He actually said this to explain the behavior of some of his zoological colleagues, but the Phactor is certain that most of you agree! Here's a link to a nice science education article that attempted to answer the question posed above. Mostly this study found what those of us who have long labored in botanical education have known for a long while; the more like an animal the plant is, the more interest it will generate among the other little animals. For many people ordinary plants just don't register with their perceptions at all; they're plant blind. And as attention spans get shorter, it's getting more difficult to get even college-age students to study plants because even great stuff like tropisms "take too long"! To develop and maintain an interest in plants kids have to be exposed to them, grow them, watch them, have things pointed out to them, all along, not just for a week long science unit once a year. The Phactor had the advantage of having had gardeners for parents and having lived in a sufficiently rural area that exposed you to real nature. You learned early on what to avoid (leaves of three, Mr. Throckmorton's orchards and melons, etc.) and what fruits and nuts were edible. Do your children have pets? Do they have plants? And so our efforts to make plants interesting will continue, although as my colleague suggested, not everyone matures enough to like plants, and they will probably retain their plant blindness forever.

Plant Endangered Species - We have met the enemy, and some of them are us.

Typical, typical, and tragically sad. The Life Lines blog about endangered species based on an article in Science points out that all major groups of vertebrates are in trouble. But look at the data. Which group is suffering the most by a huge margin, by a factor of two? Yes, cycads, the most ancient living lineage of seed plants, the virtual dinosaurs of the plant kingdom. 60% of species are rated vulnerable (vu), endangered (en), or critically endangered (cr), and they have the largest proportion of species extinct in the wild (ew), and nary a mention. This is unfortunately a very typical example of the zoo-bias that permeates biology. Wish there were corrective lens for plant blindness.

Fabulous Fall Foliage

Fall color is full upon us, although it will be short lived because of the drought. Some people are so poor at discerning differences among plants, a form of plant blindness, that they just see them as all the same. Here's an example. The Phactor's daily commute passes a neatly trimmed sidewalk lining hedge of about one meter in height, and every few days he wonders about the original identify of the hedge, probably either barberry or privet, both are quite prevalent, as are a wide variety of other woody weeds that have taken their place among the former as part of the hedge to be dutifully pruned into shape. Some of them are providing a most excellent fall foliage display and at a convenient height for some of you young people to pick and take home to your Mother. Nothing like some gaudy fall leaves to please. Oh, yes, the hedge is owned by a health care organization.

Naked, miserable, and hungry

A student has asked the Phytophactor's academic alter ego, “Why should I study botany?” To answer a question with a question, “What is it that makes you think plants are uninteresting and unimportant?” Let us take the most obvious point first. Without plants, specifically flowering plants, you would be naked, miserable, and hungry. The vast majority of our material needs are supplied by plants (pause for a sip of coffee), so isn’t it a good idea that people in general, and biology students in particular, should know something about plants?
Plants are not just a static background, a green scenery upon which animal players perform. Plants do all the things animals do except they do not bite or defecate (Some plants can sting.). They sense without sensory organs, they move without muscles, they react without nerves, and with a few rare exceptions, not a single animal anywhere can live without plants providing either directly or indirectly some of the solar energy they have captured and locked into chemical bonds to provide for their own growth and reproduction. Look at that sugar bowl on the table; those crystals are a molecular form of sunlight made by sugar cane (or a beet); no wonder a little candy can light up your day. Fortunately plants err on the conservative side, capturing more light energy than they actually need, so the rest of the biosphere can survive on their excess. Knowing how they do all these things is a very worthwhile endeavor, and something that will change your perspective; it will help cure your plant blindness.
Unfortunately as animals many of us have a strong bias against plants, or a strong preference for things more like ourselves. Actually our society is so removed from its "roots" that knowledge and interest in plants has diminished in recent decades, and some glimmers from interest in sustainability and sources of food give some hope. Biology in the USA reflects this bias and the human-biomedicine tail wags the biological dog (Browse through "science" blogs and look for a botanical one; good luck.). A very few people overcome this bias transforming themselves into botanists, a higher calling, and those few thousand of us spend our lives and careers in the worthwhile pursuit of these fascinating organisms. Curiously, more than any other group of plants, flowering plants have employed animals to do their bidding, bribing, and sometimes fooling animals into dispersing their spores. But they can’t get humans to get more interested in botany, and strangely enough this includes many gardeners who want to grow plants and look at plants, but not learn too much about them. And for this reason the Phytophactor dons his cape and dispenses botany in carefully controlled doses in the guise of gardening. But surely you knew this.
So heed this call to action. Go to your local institution of higher learning and demand more classes, more opportunities, and more facilities to study plants. Adopt a botanist. Why just $10,000 a year would keep my local field research clicking along, and most of the money would be used to hire deserving students who have an interest in plants.