Italian neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso enthusiastically examines the relationship between plants and humans
Review by Olivia Edward
In the prologue of Tree Stories, Stefano Mancuso wonders whether his fixation on plants, and the way they make it into all of his stories, might be because he loves them, and, like any obsessed lover, he sees links to his love object everywhere he looks. But then he corrects himself with the science. Of course plants would make their way into so many of his stories – they’re so prevalent, making up 85 per cent of the Earth’s biomass. How could there possibly be a story on this planet where a plant didn’t pop up somewhere.
At its core, this is a book about the relationships between plants and humans, and the stories that can be woven from those relationships. And Mancuso is a good person to be telling these stories because, as an Italian neurobiologist and philosopher, he has a distinct perspective.
He also fervently believes that plant intelligence has been overlooked. In fact, he goes further than that – he has suggested that our scientific ways of knowing don’t even have the ability or mechanisms to perceive plant intelligence because they’ve been set up to understand and view animal behaviour. But Mancuso gently tilts the lens and a whole other world slides into view.
There’s a thought for how we slow climate warming by planting greenery absolutely everywhere we can in cities so we turn them from ‘the main engines of our aggression against the environment’ into a flourishing and ‘enduring ecological niche’, making them permeable and allowing them to cool down, like plants do, through the slow evaporation of water from their leaves.
And beyond that are other incredible tales of plant entwinement – of moon trees, of the most efficient way to peel a banana and of what makes certain violin woods fit for virtuosos. But what rings out resoundingly throughout this book is enthusiasm – Mancuso’s enthusiasm for plants. It’s worth remembering the etymology of that word, ‘enthusiasm’ – to be inspired or possessed by a god/theos. And that’s how this work reads – as the writings of a man who’s inspired and possessed by a god, the god of plants.
