Plants and plant-eaters co-evolved. And plants aren't the passive partners in the chain of terrestrial life. Hence today's Pop Ecology movement is quite wrong in believing that plants are happy to fill their role as fodder for herbivores in a harmonious and perfectly balanced ecosystem. A birch tree doesn't feel cosmic fulfillment when a moose munches its leaves; the tree species, in fact, evolves to fight the moose, to keep the animal's munching lips away from vulnerable young leaves and twigs. In the final analysis, the merciless hand of natural selection will favor the birch genes that make the tree less and less palatable to the moose in generation after generation. No plant species could survive for long by offering itself as unprotected fodder. ~ Robert T. Bakker
"Or he might say: 'Whereas some honorable recluses and brahmins, while living on food offered by the faithful, continuously cause damage to seed and plant life — to plants propagated from roots, stems, joints, buddings, and seeds — the recluse Gotama abstains from damaging seed and plant life.' ~ Gautama Buddha

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or Viridiplantae in Latin. They generally obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis using chlorophyll contained in chloroplasts, which gives them their green color.

Quotes

  • Plants and plant-eaters co-evolved. And plants aren't the passive partners in the chain of terrestrial life. Hence today's Pop Ecology movement is quite wrong in believing that plants are happy to fill their role as fodder for herbivores in a harmonious and perfectly balanced ecosystem. A birch tree doesn't feel cosmic fulfillment when a moose munches its leaves; the tree species, in fact, evolves to fight the moose, to keep the animal's munching lips away from vulnerable young leaves and twigs. In the final analysis, the merciless hand of natural selection will favor the birch genes that make the tree less and less palatable to the moose in generation after generation. No plant species could survive for long by offering itself as unprotected fodder.
    • Robert T. Bakker, The Dinosaur Heresies: A Revolutionary View of Dinosaurs (1986), Longman Scientific & Technical, p. 179
  • "Or he might say: 'Whereas some honorable recluses and brahmins, while living on food offered by the faithful, continuously cause damage to seed and plant life — to plants propagated from roots, stems, joints, buddings, and seeds — the recluse Gotama abstains from damaging seed and plant life.'
  • A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire, in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart.
  • The shad-bush, white with flowers,
    Brightened the glens; the new leaved butternut
    And quivering poplar to the roving breeze
    Gave a balsamic fragrance.
    • William Cullen Bryant, The Old Man's Counsel, line 28; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 812.
  • The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.
  • I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree.
  • The gadding vine.
  • There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation's braggart lords.
    • John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf (1916).
  • Plants will react quite sharply to an abortion. The fetus, however, will also react to the death of an animal in the family, and will be acquainted with the unconscious psychic relationships within the family long before it reaches the sixth month. The plants in a house are also quite aware of the growing fetus; the plants will also pick up the fact that a member of the family is ill, often in advance of physical symptoms. They are that sensitive to the consciousness within cellular structure. Plants will also know whether a fetus is male or female.
  • A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
    And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
    And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
    And clothed them beneath the kisses of night.
  • For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower;
    Radiance and odour are not its dower;
    It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full,
    It desires what it has not, the beautiful.
  • Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
  • Some to the holly hedge
    Nestling repair; and to the thicket some;
    Some to the rude protection of the thorn.
  • Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?
  • To me the meanest flower that blows can give/ Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
    • William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (1803).

See also

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