Sunday 18 March 2012

Desert Plants

Nabhan, G.P.  1990.  Desert Plants as Calories, Cures, and Characters (pg. 3-19) in Gathering the Desert.  Univ. Of Arizona Press. 
 

As I practically have no knowledge of Indian culture or of desert plants, I found Nabhan’s story interesting;  however, because of my limited knowledge I had difficulties relating to the story and understanding what Nabhan was discussing.  I usually enjoy reading stories that expand my vocabulary – ones in which I am forced to look the words up in a dictionary in order to properly understand what is happening.  I do not, however, enjoy doing this multiple times for one page of writing – as I would have had to for reading ‘Desert Plants as Calories, Cures, and Characters’, if I had been in possession of a dictionary at the time that I read it.  Thus I only have assumed, generalized ideas of the meanings for “mescal”, “chiltepines”, “spry”, “mesquite-branch ramada”, “oraganpipe cactus fruit” (p. 3), “atole de pechita”, “batea”, “metate”, “carob” (p. 4), “succor” (p. 5), etc.  I admit – fully and completely, without argument – that my vocabulary and personal dictionary (the one located in my head) are limited, and it makes sense that I didn’t understand many of these terms as they are referring to plants that I’ve never been exposed to before.  However, I believe that this written work could have been enhanced by containing pictures of the named plants, near to where Nabhan discusses them. 
I did find the legends/stories concerning the Earth Maker and the greasewood (p. 11 & 17) plant to be a nice addition.  The one plant seed spanning a horizontal, doughnut shaped distance of 22 meters was also a highlight for me from this piece (p. 12).  This fascinating phenomenon actually makes quite a lot of sense when I think about it, however why it was able to form a doughnut shape without its offspring growing up around and within the circle, thus ruining this shape, seems strange.  It is also very interesting that the only known animal (a grasshoppers) to have counter adaptations to the creosote’s defense mechanisms is also protected from predators through its resemblance to the creosote plant itself (p. 13-14).  I liked how Nabhan points out that not only are some desert plants good for curing certain diseases that have inflicted Native Americans and Mexican-Americans due to their dietary changes, but these plants can also benefit human kind in other ways, even if it is just through the scents of their volatile oils (p. 8).

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