|
TOEFL Directory > TOEFL writing > 32 Botany
32 Botany
Botany, the study of plants, occupies a peculiar position in the history
of human knowledge. For many thousands of years it was the one field of
awareness about which humans had anything more than the vaguest of
insights. It is impossible to know today just what our Stone Age
ancestors knew about plants, but form what we can observe of pre-
industrial societies that still exist a detailed learning of plants and
their properties must be extremely ancient. This is logical. Plants are
the basis of the food pyramid for all living things even for other
plants. They have always been enormously important to the welfare of
people not only for food, but also for clothing, weapons, tools, dyes,
medicines, shelter, and a great many other purposes. Tribes living today
in the jungles of the Amazon recognize literally hundreds of plants and
know many properties of each. To them, botany, as such, has no name and
is probably not even recognized as a special branch of ?knowledge?at
all.
Unfortunately, the more industrialized we become the farther away we
move from direct contact with plants, and the less distinct our
knowledge of botany grows. Yet everyone comes unconsciously on an
amazing amount of botanical knowledge, and few people will fail to
recognize a rose, an apple, or an orchid. When our Neolithic ancestors,
living in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago, discovered that
certain grasses could be harvested and their seeds planted for richer
yields the next season the first great step in a new association of
plants and humans was taken. Grains were discovered and from them flowed
the marvel of agriculture: cultivated crops. From then on, humans would
increasingly take their living from the controlled production of a few
plants, rather than getting a little here and a little there from many
varieties that grew wild- and the accumulated knowledge of tens of
thousands of years of experience and intimacy with plants in the wild
would begin to fade away.
|
