Why people need plants

Abstract

Why do botanists do what they do? A perfectly acceptable response – in my view – is that they are fascinated by plants and want to discover how they ‘work’. Others – particularly those who may fund such work via their taxes – might prefer a more applied answer, maybe along the lines of ‘plants are extremely useful resources and to exploit them fully we need to study them’. Well, for those practitioners who might need a reminder of just how useful plants are, and why people need them, and for those who want to be assured that their taxes are being put to good use, Wood and Habgood's Why people need plants (hereafter referred to as Plants!) might be just the thing. Plants! justifies its existence by dealing with the more obvious uses of plants in separate chapters: as providers of food (where do you think ‘our daily bread’ comes from?), drinks (tea, coffee, ultimately alcoholic beverages, too …), medicines (e.g. aspirin, morphine, anti-cancer drugs, quinine …), sources of protection (e.g. timber as a construction material and fibres to clothe us …). To a great extent those are well-established, often ancient, uses of plants and absolutely have to be covered in such a tome. But, to emphasise our continued and future exploitation of (maybe even dependence upon?) plants and plant products, Plants! also covers uses that may be less obvious to the general public (and maybe even some botanists?). Accordingly, it has chapters devoted to biofuels (featuring short-rotation coppice, elephant grass and switch grass, biogas, biodiesel and bioethanol); plants in crime – both as ‘weapons’ (e.g. plant-derived poisons) and as sources of evidence (e.g. flowers at a crime scene and their pollen on the suspect's clothes); and plants for nutrition and well-being (although the nutritional value of plants should be well known – yes, vitamin C-containing fruits combating scurvy get a prominent mention – plant flavours, aromas and colours all also have a role to play, and these may be more subtle). One of the most contentious areas of modern plant science – genetic modification – is tackled in a dedicated chapter that provides appropriate genetic background and outlines the techniques and their current applications in a reasonably straightforward way. This chapter is careful not to say whether GM is ‘good’ or ‘bad’: the reader must make up his or her own mind on that score. Plants! is also careful to make the extremely important point that this valuable resource is not to be taken for granted; it is under serious and increasing threat and needs both protection and management. Three chapters towards the end of the book – ‘The impact of humankind on the planet’, ‘Conservation’ and ‘Plant collecting and trading’ – deal with aspects of that problem, which include loss of habitat (sometimes to exploit one plant resource such as oil from palms to the detriment of others), over-exploitation due to trade in rare plants, and threats posed by invasive alien plants. On a more positive note, Plants! provides information about conservation projects that are helping to conserve/preserve the plant resource. And – as you'd expect given its Kew pedigree – Plants! also makes mention of seed banks/vaults wherein seeds are preserved to maintain important stocks of plant genetic diversity for future generations. Plants! is also the set book that accompanies the Open University (UK-based provider of distance and adult learning education) course ‘Plants and People’ (Open University, 2011), which ‘explains the importance of plants on a local and global scale and how they impact on the everyday lives of humans’. Fittingly, then, Plants! represents a collaboration between one of the UK's major higher education institutions and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, one of the world's greatest collections of plants and plant-based enquiry. Plants!'s pedagogy is evident in the organisation of the sections and the typically clear explanations and illustrations. But Plants! is not ‘just a textbook’, it is written in an accessible way and can be recommended to all those who want to learn more about plants and people. My only gripe is that this otherwise great little book contains neither references nor ‘further reading’, making it difficult for interested readers to pursue particular topics. Why people need plants could just as easily be called Why people need plant biologists! Refer your interrogators to Plants! when next they ask, ‘why do we need plants/plant biologists?’!