Inscribing Human–Plant Connections: American Field Guides to Wildflowers at 1900

In his 2019 Nature’s Best Hope, entomologist Douglas W. Tallamy urges homeowners to reimagine their relationship to their land, to convert their turf grass lawns to native plant habitat for birds, bees, butterflies, and more, a change that is “nothing less than a cultural transformation” (8). Since their arrival, British and European settlers have introduced nonnative plants as sources of food and medicine. They also brought with them and later commercially imported plant species for aesthetic purposes. In her history of the global movement of flora, Judith M. Taylor notes that the early trade in American plants was often part of scientific exploration, while, by the end of the nineteenth century, the botanical exchange was focused on finding plants from which companies could profit (2). This practice has had profound consequences: moving plants around the world to satisfy gardeners’ quest for beauty and conformity disrupts local ecologies, with devastating effects for native plant populations. Using the monarch butterfly–milkweed relationship as an example, Tallamy explains: Can monarchs adapt to other plant species? In theory, yes, but in reality, no. The monarch lineage has been genetically locked into a relationship with milkweeds for millions of years. Adaptation could conceivably modify this relationship very slowly over enormously long periods, but asking monarchs to suddenly (within decades) switch their dependence on milkweeds to an entirely different plant lineage … is like asking humans to develop wings. (106)