The Lost Language of Plants: The Ecological Importance of Plant Medicines for Life on Earth

By Stephen Harrod Buhner

Summarized with permission of Chelsea Green.
All rights reserved.

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Pollinators include at least 1,500 bird species, 15,000 wasps, 40,000 bees, 20,000 butterflies and moths, 14,000 flies, 200,000 beetles, 165 bats, and 300 other mammals, with 80 percent of them being unknown to researchers. The chemical compounds within plants are used for their ecosystem's health too.

• Plants are able to send healing medicines to other species in their ecosystem through the mycelial network in the soil's upper layer.
• Bees collect tree resins, plant oils, and other compounds to create propolis used to keep their hives healthy.
• Some grasshoppers and beetles use plant chemicals to keep their shells free from mites, fungi, and other problems.
• The sawfly sprays terpenes collected from pine trees on its predators.
• Birds weave medicinal plants into their nests to keep their babies healthy.
• Primates and elephants eat specific plants before childbirth to reduce bleeding and ease contractions.

Some outcomes of the universe-as-machine theory of nature include the following. Notice the parallel effects between commercial agriculture and commercial medicines.

• The ecosystem balance has been disrupted by chemicals such as caffeine and aspirin disposed of by humans. Even after wastewater treatment, they interfere with the digestion, reproduction, and health of animals, insects, and plants, which forces the ecosystem to reassemble itself.
• Diversity of plant species is considered unnecessary from the viewpoint of scientists. This careless disregard has resulted in the degradation of ecosystems and the outbreaks of diseases. Loss of nutrition is another result; the hundreds of varieties of wildly grown apples contain dozens more nutrients than the few varieties of commercially grown apples.
• People used to eat between 10,000 and 80,000 different types of plants in their diets; now they eat from 10 to 20 different plants, or fewer. This gives rise to diseases like cancer and heart disease that used to be rare.
• Using commercially prepared medicines is less effective than using the whole plant. Isolating compounds from plants causes more side effects and more toxicity for patients. Additionally, manufacturing medicines pollutes the environment and costs more.

Plants are medicine for the Earth too.

• Wetland plants filter the water and control the levels of methane in the air.
• Wild lettuce, used to soothe burns on people, grows in profusion over land that was severely burned previously.

Some people are deliberately planting certain species to heal ecosystems but, again, this ignores the complexity of life-forms and functions in a system. Gaia does much better left on her own.

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