ECOLOGY
No Such Thing as a “Bad” Plant
Our subjectivity serves a purpose, but is not the final word
There’s no such thing as a “bad” plant. There are only particular plants in particular places at particular times that particular people have called “bad” for particular reasons. That’s a lot of “particulars.” Too many to plausibly claim that one is describing anything intrinsic about the nature of the plant as a species.
One person’s “weed” is someone else’s food or medicine or craft material or habitat or simple object of beauty. And by “someone else” I don’t just mean humans. The bugs and the birds, the mammals and the mushrooms, the lizards and lichen — they all make use of plants too. Then there is the stream sheltered by shrubs, the hillock held in place by grass, and the clouds breathed into being by trees.
None of this is to say that you shouldn’t weed your garden. You are choosing to favor some plants over others for practical reasons, and this has been a legitimate human activity for many thousands of years, since long before agriculture actually.
This is just a reminder that our opinions about a plant are merely that: ours, and opinions. A kind of plant is many things to many people (human and other than) and it is not, as a species, inherently “weedy” or “noxious” or…
