What a wonderful book. It dovetails so nicely with the course material I'm studying to become a master gardener. Sometimes I wonder if knowing all the formula is really necessary.
Carbon dioxide plus water combined in the presence of light and chlorophyll in the beautiful membrane-bound machinery of life yields sugar and oxygen.
Sugar combined with oxygen in the beautiful membrane-bound machinery of life called the mitochondria yields us right back where we began - carbon dioxide and water.
Respiration - the source of energy that lets us farm and dance and speak. The breath of plants gives life to animals and the breath of animals gives life to plants.
The very facts of the world are a poem. Light is turned to sugar. Salamanders find their way to ancestral ponds following magnetic lines radiating from the earth. The saliva of grazing buffalo causes the grass to grow taller. Tobacco seeds germinate when they smell smoke. Microbes in industrial waste can destroy mercury.
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Plants know how to make food from light and water. Not only do they feed themselves, but they make enough to sustain the life of all the rest of us. Plants are providers for the rest of the community and exemplify the virtue of generosity, always offering food. What if Western scientists saw plants as their teachers rather than subjects?
pp 345-346
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