My Ethnobotanical History

Ethnobotany - what is it?

If it wasn't for plants, we, and all other land animals for that matter, would not be here today. Humans today depend on the growth of plants, the marvelous lifeforms that slowly absorb sunlight and nutrients from the earth to create food we enjoy and tools we use.

Botany is the study of these plants, and ethnobotany is the study of the reciprocal relationship between those plants and human culture. We as humans tend to plants, making they grow and thrive in a changing environment, while also selecting them based on qualities and usage. Plants return this relationship, providing sustenance and medicines paramount to our health, and products that help many cultures hold their invaluable ceremonies, while also changing and sculpting human culture so that their species prosper in an ever-changing modern world.

Plant Awareness Disparity

While plants majorly sculpt the world we live in, they might be so commonplace and mundane to many students, that they are often ignored or undervalued. This leads to an effect known as plant awareness disparity (or plant blindness), which causes many in the newer generation to disregard the science and purpose of many plants, and the deep role they play in our health and culture. As more and more people start living in environments that limits exposure to nature, like in urban areas, this attitude causes a lack of concern about critical issues that plants play a role regarding conservation and agriculture among much of a population, which may only intensify as times goes on. The project is therefore centered around ethnobotany to increase the awareness of the way we grow and benefit from important plant species, using the relationship between ourselves and botanical life to dispel this disparity.

Major groupings of land plants

Seed-Bearing Plants

Angiosperms: This is the family that all flowering plants are from.

Gymnosperms: This is the family that the cone-bearing plants come from.

The seed-bearing plants are the ones that make the base of humanity's food chain and are extremely diverse, but evolved last among all the plants in life's history. They have a waxy cuticle to prevent water loss, and stomata to exchange gases with their environment. They can also fertilize internally, making them much more resilient than other types of plants.

Ferns

Ferns and their allies often grow in moist environments. They share some physiological similarities to seed-bearing plants, like cuticles and stomata, but differ in their method of reproduction. Ferns do not flower or bear seeds, but use spores to reproduce.

Bryophytes

Bryophytes include many families of organisms, most familiar being mosses. These more primitive plants are far smaller completely limited to moist environments due to their lack of an internal vascular system for water transport.

Importance to me, my family, and my culture

Plants play a huge role in my family's history and values, as well as being important for my own health and well-being. Here are three examples that especially demonstrate that.

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