245
In this Anthropocene epoch, pertinacity curves for countless plant species remain
a great unknown.
16
With at least five previous global extinction events and countless
local and regional glaciations, volcanic eruptions and other natural transmutations
of the earth’s surface, it remains for now impossible to divine whether there was a
time when there were more plant species than today. An estimated half of all plants
have naturally hybridized. A multitude of others have been bred so aggressively by
humans for agriculture and other reasons that disassembling the genetic aggregates,
breeds, varieties, races and landraces, countless clades, and other taxonomically
understood, phylogenetic types (as Swedishly implied) is a notoriously tricky
enterprise.
26.4 Botanical Frontiers
But one could start with Ani. In 1250 BC the famed Theban scribe’s death hastened
the writing of a manuscript emphasizing the importance of plants as offerings during human transition from life to the otherworld.
17
An analysis of Egyptian influence on human–plant relations, manifesting from the Papyrus of Ani, and its
hieroglyphic “Lord of the palm-tree,” “green twig” hosting every bird, its “Tree of
Life,” “plant of truth”(wheat), “sekemu”(vegetables), the sycamore fig-tree, and
“the plant which cometh forth from Nu” (the God of the Celestial Ocean), leaves us
a profound legacy that firmly roots science in the arts and spirituality.
Six hundred years later, the “hanging gardens of Babylon” were consecrated
(one of the touted Seven Wonders) during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II
(605–562 BCE). No actual documents remain to provide any botanical reality or
ecological context for these gardens but their legend says it all, triggered by their
first mention centuries later by the Greek-Babylonian historian Berossus of Kos (ca.
258–253 BCE).
18
Plato lamented the rampant deforestation throughout Greece and
the entire Mediterranean littoral, while Cicero would later suggest that human
May 17, 2019; see also Hotspots: Earth’s Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial
Ecoregions, by Russell A. Mittermeier, Norman Myers, Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier, Project
Coordinator, Patrice Robles Gil, CEMEX, Mexico City, Mexico 1999; see also “Hotspots,” PBS,
2008, www.hotspots-thefilm.org
16 See “Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating,’”
IPBES Science and Policy for People and Nature,” May 7, 2019, https://www.ipbes.net/news/
Media-Release-Global-Assessment, Accessed May 13, 2019; see also Life Counts: Cataloguing
Life on Earth, by Michael Gleich, Dirk Maxeiner, Michael Miersch, and Fabian Nicolay, Atlantic
Monthly Press, New York, 2000.
17 See The Papyrus of Ani, known as The Book Of The Dead, The Hieroglyphic Transcript of the
Papyrus of Ani, translated and with an Introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, University Books,
New York, 1960, p.613; see also Flora: Gardens And Plants in Art and Literature, by Edward
Lucie-Smith, Ivy Press Ltd., East Sussex, 2000. See specifically, pp. 611, 155–156, 88, and 285.
18 See “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon”, http://www.plinia.net/wonders/gardens/hg4berossus.
html, Accessed May 12, 2019.
26.4 Botanical Frontiers
In this Anthropocene epoch, pertinacity curves for countless plant species remain
a great unknown.
16
With at least five previous global extinction events and countless
local and regional glaciations, volcanic eruptions and other natural transmutations
of the earth’s surface, it remains for now impossible to divine whether there was a
time when there were more plant species than today. An estimated half of all plants
have naturally hybridized. A multitude of others have been bred so aggressively by
humans for agriculture and other reasons that disassembling the genetic aggregates,
breeds, varieties, races and landraces, countless clades, and other taxonomically
understood, phylogenetic types (as Swedishly implied) is a notoriously tricky
enterprise.
26.4 Botanical Frontiers
But one could start with Ani. In 1250 BC the famed Theban scribe’s death hastened
the writing of a manuscript emphasizing the importance of plants as offerings during human transition from life to the otherworld.
17
An analysis of Egyptian influence on human–plant relations, manifesting from the Papyrus of Ani, and its
hieroglyphic “Lord of the palm-tree,” “green twig” hosting every bird, its “Tree of
Life,” “plant of truth”(wheat), “sekemu”(vegetables), the sycamore fig-tree, and
“the plant which cometh forth from Nu” (the God of the Celestial Ocean), leaves us
a profound legacy that firmly roots science in the arts and spirituality.
Six hundred years later, the “hanging gardens of Babylon” were consecrated
(one of the touted Seven Wonders) during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II
(605–562 BCE). No actual documents remain to provide any botanical reality or
ecological context for these gardens but their legend says it all, triggered by their
first mention centuries later by the Greek-Babylonian historian Berossus of Kos (ca.
258–253 BCE).
18
Plato lamented the rampant deforestation throughout Greece and
the entire Mediterranean littoral, while Cicero would later suggest that human
May 17, 2019; see also Hotspots: Earth’s Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial
Ecoregions, by Russell A. Mittermeier, Norman Myers, Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier, Project
Coordinator, Patrice Robles Gil, CEMEX, Mexico City, Mexico 1999; see also “Hotspots,” PBS,
2008, www.hotspots-thefilm.org
16 See “Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating,’”
IPBES Science and Policy for People and Nature,” May 7, 2019, https://www.ipbes.net/news/
Media-Release-Global-Assessment, Accessed May 13, 2019; see also Life Counts: Cataloguing
Life on Earth, by Michael Gleich, Dirk Maxeiner, Michael Miersch, and Fabian Nicolay, Atlantic
Monthly Press, New York, 2000.
17 See The Papyrus of Ani, known as The Book Of The Dead, The Hieroglyphic Transcript of the
Papyrus of Ani, translated and with an Introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, University Books,
New York, 1960, p.613; see also Flora: Gardens And Plants in Art and Literature, by Edward
Lucie-Smith, Ivy Press Ltd., East Sussex, 2000. See specifically, pp. 611, 155–156, 88, and 285.
18 See “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon”, http://www.plinia.net/wonders/gardens/hg4berossus.
html, Accessed May 12, 2019.
26.4 Botanical Frontiers