The Botany of Desire

Based on Michael Pollan's book by the same name, The Botany of Desire explores a perspective on cultivated plants that has often gone neglected: plants use us to obtain their own desires. We may think ourselves the masters but we are no more the master of roses than the insects that pollinate them.

This PBS broadcast describes four species that have abused our fondness of them: apples, tulips, cannabis and potatoes.

Pollan spoke true when he said that we talk metaphorically when we say that plants have desires. The reason we continue to communicate this way is due to a lack of vocabulary to describe how we relate to other organisms. We have for so long thought ourselves the only creatures that matter on earth.

See more about the video and Pollan's book here:

http://www.pbs.org/thebotanyofdesire/