Pengpai News reporter Wang Yu [Editor's Note]: Every day, we meet countless plants on the way to work or school. You can treat them as strangers passing by, or you can treat them as close friends who express their feelings to them. We almost live with plants day and night, but ho

Pengpai News reporter Wang Yu

[Editor's note]: Every day, we meet countless plants on the way to work or school. You can treat them as strangers passing by, or you can treat them as close friends who express their feelings to them. We almost live with plants day and night, but how much do we know about them?

Humans are a species surrounded by plants, or human life is based on the plant world. But how to define plants and how to recognize plants is not a simple question.

The Paper’s private geographic column gives you this plant book list, and together we will conduct an adventure tour about plants in spring. Read the wisdom of plants and understand the world we live in.

Babylonian Sky Garden

"Babylon Sky Garden"; [Japanese] written by Ryuhiko Shibusawa, translated by Yuan Jing; Urai Culture·Hunan Literature and Art Publishing; October 2020

Speaking of Shibusawa Ryuhiko Shibusawa's status in the Japanese literary world, many people call him a "dark aesthetic master" and an absolute genius.

He has written a large number of fantasy literary works full of dark black colors throughout his life. He is a famous modern Japanese writer and critic. His imagination comes from a huge reading volume. Since the 1950s, he began to study French literature, with countless translations and works, and introduced works by different writers such as the Marquis of Sade, Bataille, and Alto to Japanese readers, which caused a sensation. Yukio Mishima once commented: "If Shibusawa Ryuhiko is gone, then how boring Japan will become."

Shibusawa Ryuhiko, known as the "dark aesthetic master" in the Japanese literary world. Data picture

Shibusawa Ryuhiko loves travel and naturalism. The work "Bible" by the ancient Roman scholar Pliny the Old (called the representative work of ancient Western encyclopedias) was regarded as the "Bible". In his eyes, the ancient Babylonians had a strong romantic complex for plants -

"In legend, the builder of this dreamlike sky garden was Semelemis, the queen of the Assyrian kingdom, about 2,770 years ago. However, despite the efforts of many historians to study and investigate, people still know nothing about the exact information of this woman shrouded in legendary glory. In my random assumption, Queen Semelemis must have a deep love for plants and has corresponding knowledge. She even had the most outstanding aesthetic consciousness and decadent soul at that time." "Han Garden painted by painters in the 16th century. Wikipedia Picture

Not only in the Babylonian legend more than two thousand years ago, he discovered that in Greek mythology, there are countless wonderful stories of human beings transformed into plants, such as Daphne, who asked his father for help because he was chased by Apollo and then turned into a laurel; Nakasos, a young man who was obsessed with the reflection of himself in the water, but died of bitter love; and Adonis, who died of being attacked by wild boars, and his blood turned into anemone... Shibusawa Ryuhiko combined his understanding of religion, folk customs, literature, art, etc. to introduce the plants that appear in ancient literary works to readers and analyze the meaning behind each plant.

Legend The builder of the Sky Garden was Semiremis, the queen of the Assyrian kingdom, about 2,770 years ago. The picture shows the painting "Semiremis' Sky Garden", H. Waldeck, around the 19th century. Wikipedia Picture

"Babylonian Sky Garden" is a special collection of commemorative essays released by Kawatoku, Japan during the 30th anniversary of Ryuhiko Shibusawa's death (2017). This book sorts out many works by Ryuhiko Shibusawa and lists classic works with the theme of "plant". Although thousands of years have passed, we cannot reproduce the wonderful scenery of the sky garden, but we can get a glimpse of the dazzling legends in the plant world in Shibusawa Ryuki's words.

Plants' Moments

"Plants' Moments" [Switzerland] by Adriana Balmann, translated by Liu Xiaoyu; Houlang丨Elephant Publishing House; November 2020

In the current fashionable words, everyone has their own "circle", so do you know that plants also have their own "circle"?

For example, in the circle of "disguised masters", there are pigeons that are not pigeons, parrot flowers that look like parrots, and lip flowers that look like red lips; in the circle of "hospits" there are mistletoe that absorbs nutrients from trees and strangle trees that strangle others; giant konjac as high as 3 meters, giant cactus Wulun pillars as long as 15 meters, and undersea coconut weighing 30 kilograms belong to the "giant circle"; avocados, chayotes, and cucumbers are both vegetables and fruits, and belong to the "fruit and vegetable circles that are inseparable from real or fake"; what are the "therapists" in the plant world? That is echinacea that enhances immunity, hypericum that resists depression, safflower thyme that promotes digestion, etc.

The author of this book, Adriana Balmann, was born in 1979 in the state of Ticino, southern Switzerland. He has been committed to book illustrations, cartoon design and production for a long time, and has published a series of children's picture books and comics that are deeply loved by readers.

In the book "The Circle of Friends of Plants", Adriana carefully verified and spent three years to divide 760 plants from all over the world into 51 unique categories according to the characteristics of the plant's color, growth environment, smell, social value, etc., and at the same time, she developed wonderful ideas, gave each "circle" an interesting name, bringing readers a brand new understanding.

This is a popular plant science book suitable for children to read. It not only contains illustrations full of childlike fun, but also contains rich scientific knowledge - "Ginkgo trees can live up to 1,000 years and are the oldest tree species on the earth. But there is a plant called Citi Fir, with a lifespan of 6,000 years!", "Frankincense and Coptis chinensis was used as chewing gum in ancient times", "Ons were used as wages for pyramid construction workers?"...Adriana invited readers to walk into the colorful garden together and travel around the plant world to the vast grasslands and deep in the dense forests.

If you are tired of boring traditional popular science books? Then let’s take a look at such a “not very serious” plant classification book!

Plants and Empires

"Plants and Empires"; by Ronda Schbinger, translated by Jiang Hong; China Workers Publishing House; Year of publication: November 2020

Whether in grand narratives or in research on daily life, the attention received by plants is far from reflecting their importance to humans. But in fact, as important natural and cultural products, plants often play a key role in the big conspiracy.

In the 19th century, the Bolivian government tortured Aymará Indian Manuel Incra and executed him for his involvement in smuggling cinchona seeds to the UK.

Don’t underestimate this cinchona tree seed. It has another name, “Peruvian bark”, which is the main tree species for extracting quinine alkaloids, and quinine is a good medicine for the treatment of malaria and other malignant fevers. In the 1930s, the Netherlands cultivated smuggled cinchona trees on the other side of the earth, thus breaking the quinine monopoly in South America. During World War II, the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, and their primary goal was to control the supply of quinine around the world, leaving almost nothing in the Allies, which led to far more deaths from malaria in the Pacific War than the Japanese bayonets and bullets.

It can be seen that plants are often entangled with political ties involving major stakes, and this is the so-called "plant geopolitics."

golden phoenix flower. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) once wrote in the book "Attachment of Perverted Insects in Suriname" that the Indians who were not treated well by the Dutch masters had abortions with the seeds of the Golden Phoenix Flower. Negro slaves in Guinea and Angola threatened to refuse childbirth in order to seek better treatment. To this day, various parts of this plant are still used for abortion in many parts of the Caribbean.China Workers Publishing House Picture

"Plants and Empires" is a book that looks back at politics and history from a botanical perspective. The author, Ronda Schbinger, is a professor of the Department of History at Stanford University and a famous historian of feminist science. He has written works such as "The Secret Therapy of Slaves: People, Plants and Medicine in the Atlantic World in the 18th Century", "The Body of Nature: Gender in the Development of Modern Science".

The author looks back at the European history from the 15th to the 19th centuries, and starts from the journey of navigators, analyzes the secret relationship between botany and slavery, curiosity and capitalism, and explores the importance of plant naming. And behind this, you will find that those empire navigators risked their lives to explore foreign plants and together with their monarchs, they created a global culture of botany, mixed with cruel and tragic colonial history.

Rose Kiss

"Rose Kiss"; [US] Peter Bernhardt, translated by Liu Huajie; CITIC Publishing Group; January 2021

"It is said that some very beautiful flowers have ugly names. In the era of Shakespeare, the canine rose was also called canker blossom. Canker and cancer ("cancer") have the same Latin etymology. People compare pink petals to purulent sores or rusty scrap iron. That's because its flowers lack the Turkic rose (Rosa damascena) and French rose (R. The strong aroma of gallica. "

" By the time of Elizabeth, people used roses to add fragrance to food, beverages and early toothpaste. Roses were a ancestral product as their ancestral product before modern laundry soaps, air fresheners and cold medicines appeared. Women washed their faces with rose water because they believed that roses could bring them back to their beautiful youth. Roses without fragrance are like ‘beauty’ without ‘real’. “

Flowers, everyone likes flowers, who would refuse a blooming rose? Flowers bring us the enjoyment of beauty and express our emotions. But how much do we know about it?

Camellia, illustrations in the book

Author Peter Bernhardt is a professor of the Department of Biology at St. Louis University, USA, associate researcher at the Missouri Botanical Garden in the United States, and the Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney, Australia. He specializes in flowers and plants throughout his life. "The Kiss of the Rose" is an interesting plant science book and his plant observation notes on various flowers.

He began to observe the most familiar rose sepals and introduced the structure, habits and shapes of flowers, when flowers bloom and wither, pollen and pollination, and until the evolution of flowers, not only showed the diversity and adaptability of flowers in all aspects, but also discussed the interesting interactions between flowers and insects and the close relationship between flowers and humans in detail, vividly showing the evolution of flowers over the past millions of years, making people amazed at the exquisiteness and miracle of natural creation.

Wisteria Flower, illustrations in the book

In addition to the scientific knowledge of flowers, Bernhardt also combines the history, legends and myths of flowers, interspersed with wonderful personal experiences, and shares anecdotes related to flowers. The book also selects a number of hand-painted illustrations of plant painting masters, beautifully showing the shape and structure of flowers, giving all those who love and understand flowers a strong visual experience.

As he said, "Flowers are not blooming for people, but they bring us inspiration for love and beauty."

Plant

"Plant"; [UK] by Timothy Walker, translated by Zhang Xue; Yilin Publishing House; Year: January 2021

I read many flowers and plants, and eventually I will return to one question, that is, "What is a plant?"

This seemingly simple question always makes it difficult for us to answer for a while.

Author Timothy Walker wrote in the book Plants, "Plants are as easy to identify, but difficult to define." That's right, we almost live with plants day and night, but we often turn a blind eye to them, let alone know much about them.

However, plants are the basic constituent elements of the biosphere, and their evolution directly affects the evolution of animal life and the evolution of Earth's climate. The importance of plants to humans is self-evident. They not only provide food for humans as grains, fruits and vegetables, but also provide raw materials for material materials such as wood, paper and medicine.

Timothy Walker, a British botanist, lecturer in the Department of Biology in the Department of Plant Sciences, Somerville College, Oxford University, and was the director of the Botanical Garden of Oxford University. In 2011, he hosted the "Botany: The History of Bloom" series on BBC 4, and wrote works such as "Euphorbia" and "Plant Protection".

In the book Plants, Walker briefly and vividly introduces the characteristics, evolutionary history and diversity of plants, as well as their aesthetic and practical value, and emphasizes the need to protect them for future generations. From the primitive water to the difficult survival on land, from their reproduction methods to various strategies of self-transmission, you will find why the leaves stretch, who the flowers bloom for, and how the seeds travel far, plants have their own exquisite solutions. Plants are far more wiser than we think.

When we are pursuing the answer to what plants are, the final question we have to answer is who we are. Understanding the wisdom of plants is also understanding the survival philosophy given to us by nature.

Editor in charge: Xu Ying

Proofreading: Zhang Liangliang