Plants were regarded as no more than the furniture of the planet — useful, decorative, even indispensable; but essentially passive. Their growing existential stature means that we will have to rethink notions of “the natural order”.
过去,人们认为植物不过是地球上的家具——实用、好看,甚至不可或缺,但本质上依然是被动的。它们的存在身份的不断提高,意味着我们必须重新思考“自然秩序”的概念。
Even their reproductive strategies suggest inventiveness and opportunism, not rigid genetic scripts. A modular structure means plants have no irreplaceable organs and are usually able to regenerate even when nine-tenths of their living tissue has been destroyed. In the months after the Great Storm of October 1987, while doomsayers were announcing the ruination of the landscapes of southern England, I found a legion of trees unfazed by horizontality. Oaks and hornbeams were sending up new shoots all along their prostrate “bodies”; black poplars and beeches had aspiring new trunks climbing out of their upturned root-plates.
甚至连它们的繁殖策略都表现出创造力和投机性,而非严格依照基因的安排。模块化结构意味着植物没有不可替换的器官,即便90%的活体组织被破坏,也通常能够重生。在1987年10月大风暴(the Great Storm of October 1987)后,尽管灾难预言者宣布英格兰南部的地貌遭遇了灭顶之灾,我仍发现了很多在水平状态下也处变不惊的树。橡树和鹅耳枥倒伏的“躯体”上都抽出了新枝;黑杨和山毛榉朝上的根盘上都长出了欣欣向荣的新树干。
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