It's not easy being green. Plants seemingly lack the excitement that sometimes comes with watching some animals since they may be more difficult to humanize. Even when they are humanized, the results are often monstrous- as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors and the Triffids in The Day of the Triffids. Nevertheless, plants possess natural photogenic beauty and literally so.
Through photosynthesis, green plants constitute a key sustainable source of energy- oxygen, derived from sunlight. The basic connection between humans and green plants is in the interdependent relationship that the oxygen plants produce is essential to humans as the carbon dioxide humans exhale is essential to plants. Plants also act as sponges, absorbing the carbon dioxide automobiles produce. In addition, plants in the form of wheat and rice varieties are staple food sources worldwide.
Aside from providing a basic energy source, plants are the roots of medicine. Close to their natural form, medicinal herbs were once the backbone of medicine in the U.S. as Native Americans taught settlers how to use local plant life to quell and heal fevers. While natural medicine of this sort virtually disappeared by the middle of the 20th century with the wide acceptance of scientifically sound medical practices, herbal medicine is reentering treatment methods in complementary and alternative medicine as of the 15 years ago.1 Though the popularity of herbal medicine has been intermittent, plants have always been the basis of "sound" medical treatments. For instance, the leaves of the English yew tree possess qualities used in anti-cancer drugs and leguminous Mucuma plants contain high concentrations of dopamine used in the treatment of Parkinson's
disease.
Beside essential products derived from plants, as touched on before, plants possess aesthetic qualities that have been inspirations for authors, artists, and poets for centuries. Considering the aesthetic and functional values plants presently have on humankind, future uses though unseen appear predictably beneficial. While humans do not have to show their respect for plants by talking to or writing about them, they can do so through
conservation.
1Merry Sue Baum, p.34, Herbs: The Roots of MedicineHealthState: 21st Century Medicines, The Magazine of The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Volume 19:1, Winter/Spring 2001.