THEthe tennis player Novak Djokovicone of the greatest of all time, has a habit of hugging a brazilian fig tree: consider the gesture a “medicine”. For the German musician Pantha du Prince (pen name of Hendrik Weber) “trees are intelligent beings”. The researcher Monica Gaglianoprofessor of evolutionary ecology at Southern Cross University in Australia, claims that listening to plants is possible: «It’s a practice like meditation, yoga, running. But at a basic level you just need to find a nice big tree (because it’s easier that way) and record with a microphone.”
There are people who talk to dracaenae, they find comfort in forest bathingthey are moved by a flower. There are scientists who study evolutionary strategies, invisible relationships, chemical cooperation. And then there’s the point where these two worlds meet.
Paola Bonfante, researcher and plant biologistin the essay Plants, us and them (The Mill) tells the relationship between humans and plants, from Greek myths (Daphne transformed into a laurel plant), to art (Fallen Angelsby Anselm Kiefer), intertwining science, cinema, literature, and even reports from the latest wars. We should also put symbols there: the feminist mimosa, the radical rose, the socialist carnation. But we are too busy investigating the real botanical mystery: what we “feel” and what they “feel”. Is there a plant humanism? Do plants talk to each other? Among them, with us? And do we understand them, do they understand us? Can we prove they are sentient?
What if the feelings we attribute to plants were above all our own? (Getty Images)
Overcoming the anthropomorphic vision
«Our mistake is to use an anthropomorphic vision that attributes to them “behaviors” far from vegetal nature. We have thousands of species, from the microscopic duckweed to the giant sequoiayet their world is often identified with the generic word “nature” to which a moral concept is associated. For more than fifty years I have studied plant-microorganism interactions” explains Bonfante. «But mine was a one-sided look, as a researcher who is passionate about the experiment and doesn’t give space to feelings, to that emotion that I perceive when during the post-conference debates people tell her: “I talk to my plant. I’m happy and so is sheNow I have an individual relationship with my phalaenopsis, but from a scientific point of view there is no experimental evidence of plant intelligence based on cognitive abilities. However, there is an important emotional component, based on the desire to relate to the other. For those who are not professional plant biologist, talking about intelligence is much easier.”
The “rights” of salad
Vincenzo Signorelliolive grower on Etna, has recovered an ancient olive grove, and is convinced that the results obtained (highly awarded, it ended up in the New York Times) are due to an “emotional” response from his trees, who reciprocated the care received with an oil of extraordinary quality: «They ask me what I do. Nothing. I am a simple custodian of biodiversity, and they “feel” it.” Zoe Schlangerscience journalist, bored by reporting on climate change, in the essay The Light Eaters states with certainty: «Plants are sentient! They express deep feelings».
What if they were above all ours? We are not talking about the bouquet of roses for Valentine’s Day, but also about the symbolic charge with which we make some choices. In Prato, an industrial city near Florence with many Chinese immigrants working in the textile industry, the Neophyte Forest: 7500 square metres150 plants and 400 shrubs from different parts of the world, non-native, “migrants”, therefore a symbol of an integration project. Obviously plants have no ideology. Weeds try to occupy as much space as possible, and some of the “migrated” ones (brought by us) are colonizing land to the detriment of local varieties. However, warns Bonfante, beware of creating parallels between migrant plants and human migrants!
And again: what does it mean to be vegetarian or vegan today? Looking at plants in a new way? Change the symbolic relationships between plants and humans? Take their rights into consideration as we do with animals? By creating the “Germi di Soia” chef of the Satùt-de-Carton restaurant, Maurizio Crozza hits the point with irony: «I don’t wash the vegetables because it doesn’t necessarily mean they want to take a bath». Exaggerated? But vegan chef Simone Salvini says seriously: «Even vegetables cry». And a pumpkin, “wounded” by the cut of the knife, can cry. Vegetarian cuisine is cruel, Indians apologize and pray». A tomato does not suffer because it is enough to remove it from the plant, a carrot does because it is torn from the earth.
We are quite far from salad rights, also because some scholars think that the vegetarian choice reflects a need/desire closer to the female gender, given that eating meat is associated with masculinity. And they talk about ecofeminism, a term introduced by the French activist Françoise d’Eaubonne: «The first relationship of ecology with female liberation lies in the possibility that women take demography back into their hands, which means reclaiming the body». Deciding whether or not to contribute to population growth. Here lies one of the dilemmas. No matter how many Green Deals may be announced, billions of human beings must be fed and when faced with the need for food, nature loses.
Genetically modified plants
Of course, according to Bonfante, some solutions can be glimpsed: «Jennifer Doudna and Emanuelle Charpentier received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020 thanks to the discovery of a genetic “scissors” that allows you to modify a specific DNA site. Genome editing has enormous potential in agriculture. It is possible to obtain plants resistant to various pathogens, such as the killer fungus that attacks rice. And the question is serious: if in 1961 humanity used 70 percent of the global capacity of the biosphere, in 1999 it had reached 120.Earth Overshoot Day indicates the day on which we consume all the resources the Earth can regenerate in a year. In 2024 it was August 1st, seven months were enough. We undermine natural capital like the squanderers of the wealth inherited from fathers and grandfathers».
Plants give us oxygen and food
Then there are the wars. Vietnam represented a true ecocide with the destruction of 44 percent of tropical forests. In Ukraine, forest fires, 20-25 times higher than the average of the last ten years before the conflict, have increased CO2 emissions. In Gaza, agriculture accounted for 10 percent of the economy, with half a million people employed in the production of strawberries, citrus fruits, dates and olives. And yes, we must also include wars in our relationship with plants.
We are faced withthe oldest beings on Earth (appeared 450 million years ago), bulkier (80 percent of the biomass), more rooted (they colonize all environments); more adapted (they resist frost and heat); more diverse (390 thousand species); better equipped (they have many metabolisms that we don’t even know how to imitate). We depend on them for oxygen and food. «Maybe we would like to be like them» reflects Bonfante. «Have awareness of our cultural heritage, but possess the wisdom of their vegetal nature. Maybe we should learn how photosynthesis is done (and we’ve been studying for years to replicate it chemically). Yes, this would be a revolution.”
