How plants respond to crises

24 min readApr 14, 2020

Article originally published on PHYTOSOPY — the improbable life of plants

crisis
[krahy-seez]
Medical
the point in the course of a serious disease at which a decisive change occurs, leading either to recovery or to death. — Dictionary.com

I had back and forth thoughts on writing about the current coronavirus crisis. I like to do this exercise of looking at human features through the lens of the plants so we could learn a thing or two from nature. But the virus has some very adverse outcomes with infected numbers on the rise, many dying and most of the world under lockdown, which will create unprecedented effects for the economy. But because plants are also facing threats and dealing with viruses, I thought of making a parallel and see what we can learn from nature during these challenging times.

We’re all in this together

The coronavirus started to capture the attention of the media in late December 2019, more than one month after the first cases were registered. At this point, the crisis in China was on an exponential growth curve. The rest of the world looked concerned, some revealed for being in other places or with suspicion fuelled by conspiracy theories and doubts to the gravity of the situation. So, people did not take it to seriously until it arrived in their immediate vicinity and mostly until they felt their safety and health threatened. Which is somewhat natural if we think of the small tribe organisation that our brains are weird too. In the same time, indifference and distance don’t create space for compassion. There were many unfortunate examples of racism from calling SARS-CoV-2 the ‘Chinese virus’ to disrespectful behaviours towards SE-Asians in other parts of the world. Ignorance and misinformation lead to this ‘they vs us’ toxic rhetoric.

A few weeks later, Europe became a pandemic epicentre. Meanwhile, the president of the USA, Donald Trump, had some public appearances denying the gravity of the virus and reassuring the American citizens that everything is under control. A few weeks later, the USA was leading in the number of confirmed cases with COVId-19. If governments acted in a more coherent and ‘we’re all in this together’ manner, maybe the crisis could have been better controlled. It’s hard to say. The blame should not fall only on the decision-makers as nobody experienced something as severe as the current situation.

Scarcity for us vs me

When the news feed rolled continuously with recurrent information and updates on the number of infected or dead people, the fear took over, and the panic started. Once the pandemic was declared, and governments announced measures for containing the spread, the panic buying started. People bought in bulk imperishable foods, vegetables, a lot of meat, and unreasonable amounts of toilet paper. They thought selfishly to grab as much as they afforded and consequently be assured they have the primal means of survival. It was irrational buying for many reasons, but they could at least simply get informed about the situation in one of the most severely hit regions, Lombardy, in Italy. Even if the situation is incredibly difficult and the healthcare system is overloaded, the grocery shops and pharmacies are still open. The people can always go and get their means for survival.

What panic buyers did was to not only presumably won the race to stocking food and necessities for their quarantine, but also harmed their community. Firstly, the ones that went later to the groceries could not find some essentials, like the toilet paper, that they need. Those who want to make regular weekly groceries felt alienated, disappointed of their community and with even more exacerbated feelings of loneliness. The workers in the retail sector experienced workload as never before, themselves being in a race against time to refill the shelves. They had to go to work and be exposed to potentially infected clients. At the same time, the panic buyers could stay comfortable at home watching Netflix and enjoy the products their local supermarket workers arranged on the shelves. If that was not enough to make them feel bad for their actions, the panic buyers also mingled with large groups of people. They all raced to get first the products and so potentially helped the spread of the virus and put their health at risk.

I wouldn’t jump to judge this behaviour fuelled by fear. It also shows a high distrust in the governments. People are following the regulations and the ‘way of society’, but in these desperate times, doubts get in their minds and think to be better be sure than sorry. That makes them buy irrational amounts of goods for self-support while wasting others’ needs. I believe that if there were more transparency , traceability and openness at higher levels of the decision-makers, , this kind of panic buying behaviours would be somewhat limited.

Rules are made to be broken

After the number of confirmed COVID-19 patients exponentially grew, the governments increased the restriction measures in the respected countries. The rules ranged from limiting the economic activities and imposing social distancing, to almost forbidding people to go out without a sound reason. The laws aimed to bend the exponential curve of infection and maintain a slower spread of the virus so that the capacities of the healthcare system are not overloaded. The faster people obey these rules, the quicker the virus can be contained and controlled, and life, as usual, can resume.

But many people in all of the countries had a more or less disciplined response to the new rules. Some didn’t respect the rules as a form of mistrust in the government. Some did it as proof of invincibility or stupidity and others just didn’t take it as seriously as the leaders tried to convey. Everybody is responsible for his behaviour, but some actions can have a direct or indirect effect on society.

Many of the rule breakers are not ill-intended. They would never hurt another human being, and they don’t see the small bends in the rules as a threat to somebody’s life. The experts explained why social distancing is essential and how the spread of the virus can go under the radar from people without symptoms. Still, for some, it was not enough to make them stay at home as much as possible.

It’s the same way in which one’s action on what, how much, from where are they buying any goods can affect the whole Planet. By supporting a potentially defective system for the environment, they can contribute to accelerating climate change. They might not feel another degree of temperature increase. Still, they might be affected indirectly greatly by climate change that hurts the Agri-food sectors, for example. The ‘small’ bends in the rules are the same as the daily choices that people do in ignorance of their full effect to the community, the world and inevitably to themselves.

There are also sun rays in between the dark clouds

I’ve been ranting a bit about the negatives of this crisis. How we respond to an emergency and our place in the community. But not everything is as dark as portrayed, and there are many positive examples to praise. From the small gestures of young people doing groceries for their elderly neighbours to people applauding the heroic acts of the healthcare workers in the front lines or many other initiatives in helping the high demand of medical materials and personnel. Kudos to everybody! Thanks for giving the feeling that we are all in this together and that ‘we will never walk alone’.

For more good news amid the dark clouds, I highly encourage you to check John Krasinski’s ‘Sharing Some Good News’ programme on YouTube.

I want to learn how to change negative behaviour traits by looking at how the plants are responding to such crises. Therefore I am focusing more on the parts that we can do better at and keep on doing the ones that already made a positive change in the world.

How are plants responding to health threats?

The plants are responding to the environmental parameters always looking for the most efficient ways to reach their goal, which is to spread their genetic material further into the world. But their opportunistic method is in the same time generous because the way they react to the factors is never for their sole benefit, but as a puzzle piece in a complex ecosystem. They have a part, and they want to do efficiently. I’ve talked before in the post exploring the Plant’s Job, that the activities of the plants mirror with the essential jobs we have in the society.

So what happens when a plant is under attack from a virus?

Viruses are of many types and plants are not less susceptible to them. When they get affected, their natural protection mechanism is triggered. Their secondary metabolism is a defence mechanism resulting in phenolics, flavonoids and other such bioactive substances. The substances have a range of protecting actions for the plant and antagonist effects for the pathogen. The secondary metabolism is not essential for the plant’s growth and reproduction, but it serves as the primary defence mechanism. It doesn’t affect the growth, but the energy of the plant goes in a higher degree to the secondary metabolites production, so the growth is hindered in this time [1].

It’s like the economic growth that is now shut off, and only the essential services and jobs are in full operation, besides the ones that can be performed remotely from the comfort of the home. So society is still working but will resume the economic growth once the disease fades. We are having a distressed reaction to this process while for the plants is nothing out of the ordinary.

Interestingly, the secondary metabolites that are helping the plants fight different pathogens are the same that are beneficial for our health. These compounds have antioxidant properties. We, as humans, can trigger the accumulation of these bioactive substances by stressing the plants to a range that allows their development. So next time you choose that perfectly shaped tomato, think that looks are not everything and the quantitative traits will never trump quality.

We explored so far the plants’ defence against pathogens on an individual level. What I think is more interesting to explore is how a plant ‘behaves’ in its society when such a threat is arriving. Let’s take some examples from the current pandemic and search for a correspondent to nature’s way of acting.

The COVID-19 pandemic is creating such an immense crisis mostly because we don’t know much about the novel coronavirus. The humankind has not yet gained enough experience to have natural defence systems and societal defence mechanisms. The plants that grow in their natural habitats had millions of years of evolution where interactions with the pathogens and the environmental context equipped them with the best weapons against the inherent threats. For example, the species that evolved in high altitude grasslands, where the soils are rich in metals, have sclerophyll leaves, hardened and thick walls due to the metal accumulation. The leaves are, therefore, better protected against the herbivore insects [2].

This host-pathogen interaction happens all the time in well-established ecosystems. Is based on trial and error repetitions that perfected their adaptations. In the same manner, we should learn from every moment of this crisis and see how we can further proof the future against this type and other unknown viruses that might occur.

Even if we have a more advanced mean of communicating around the Planet, the countries have failed in taking protective measures against the spread of the virus. Thus it was leading to the current context when most of the Western World is on lockdown (the time of writing this article is the first half of April ). Communication and the spirit of ‘we are all in this together’ would help us better prepare for threats and easier overcome them. We have to stop thinking in the lines of ‘us’ against ‘them’.

Otherwise, if we take out a plant from its natural ecosystem, it will do its best to mitigate any threat and streamline its mechanisms to grow and reproduce. Still, the results would not be necessarily positive. That’s why a lot of farmers use pesticides because the monocultures lack the diversity and relations created in millions of years of evolution. The fight against different pathogens is then unfair; the plant is left without essential weapons. The same as in many cases, especially in less developed countries, the doctors were sent on the form line against the coronavirus without the safety equipment.

I remember my childhood summers spent at my grandparents in a rural area in Transylvania. Some of the chores we had in my grandpa’s humble farm were going from potato plant to potato plant to take the Colorado beetles(Leptinotarsa decemlineata) out of the leaves. My grandfather was telling me that the bug came from America and infested whole of Europe. The beetle is native indeed in America and was feeding on Solanum rostratum, which is in the same Genus with the potato plant (Solanum tuberosum). So the spread was quick and devastating, as an imbalance in the ecosystem took place. The beetle had less natural predators than available food. At this moment, the beetle is found throughout Europe, and it is still expanding its territories through the North with the aid of climate change [3]. Yet, it doesn’t have the same devastating effect as in the early years of being introduced to a new land.

So we might not get rid of the novel coronavirus, but we can learn how to mitigate it and limit the negative impact it can have on our lives. The resilience comes in time by working together and investing resources in growth without jeopardising the health or other sectors of society.

Plants’ trust in each other and…science

When the virus started spreading to the countries around China, the danger for a pandemic was emerging. But there were still plenty of people who did not believe in the gravity of the situation. The World Health Organization tried to urge governments from all around the world to take preventive measures and avoid the same infection rates happening in South-East Asia. That didn’t happen, and a few weeks later, Europe and the US were becoming the epicentres of the disease. While in SE Asia, the infection rate was declining, and the number of cured patients increased, the opposite trend was happening in the Western World.

We can also discuss how cultural and lifestyle differences can influence the rate of the virus spread and explain why in the Southern part of Europe, the numbers increased. In contrast, in the less social Northern regions, the expansion of the virus was not so evident. The obedience to the restrictions imposed by the government can also be one of the factors and simply the casual wearing of masks in Asia compared to Europe could have played a role. I expect that there will be a lot of research and reports once everything passes. Hopefully, the governments will transparently share the data for understanding what went wrong and how it could improve for the future.

It was evident that a lot of people didn’t take the virus seriously and simply did not trust in science. The unknowns of this novel virus are inflicting some real difficulties in applying successful strategies to contain the spread. Scientists are working as hard as the health staff in learning more about the illness and developing tools and vaccines to combat it. The little things that become quickly known, such as the spread from human to human and the need to frequently wash the hands did not seem crucial until the disease was around the corner.

If we are looking to how the plants manage such a crisis, it is clear that they are trusting each other chemical signalling and start preparing for what’s worst. They also have millions of years of evolution which developed the tools and weapons to fight the diseases. But if a signal comes from a neighbouring plant that is affected, they will not postpone the morphological and physiological changes to be better prepared for when the virus is there. The plants trust each other and know that the goals of the ‘message alerts’ are to help them and not to trick them in stopping the main activities that will help their growth. That is the whole point. Governments are always in an economic race and think that any strict measure, like closing the local restaurants and small businesses will do more harm. Trust and sincere cooperation are lacking.

The second thing that we should learn from the plants is their trust in…science. Yes, that’s right. They evolved for millions of year to understand some complex facts from nature, including different types of pathogens. Once they detect these harmful pests, they apply the methods for prevention and combating the virus to the tee. People are less disciplined in that sense. Just have a look at the post I wrote about procrastinating. We are far less disciplined than the plants in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. We can do a lot of harm while merely following the recommendations could have helped so much.

Plant’s resource efficiency

Food is an essential resource to all life on the Planet. In times of peace and stability, we tend to overlook the privileged lives we have with an abundance of food and access our ancestors would kill for. In these calm times, people are making regular purchases of food products, and you never have the feeling that the stock could ever empty. This feeling is also the reason why some people don’t get scared of climate change and the impact it might have on the supermarket’s shelves. When the first news came around on the expected spread of the coronavirus, many rushed to the stores and emptied the shelves with imperishable foods and weirdly, the toilet paper. These irrational acts fuel on fear of stores closing or the danger of being outside. Most of the panic buyers have to be very self-centric and selfish to try to win a food-race against their fellow participants to the community.

A plant is up-taking nutrients such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus and many more from the soil. There is a fascinating bond between plants and microorganisms from the ground exchanging ‘food sources’. The plants are exuding carbon through the roots which are used by the organisms making available nutrients necessary for the plants. These relationships form during millions of years of evolution. Although the variety is impressive, there is a sort of stability in the ecosystems. There are plants which have a faster growth known as ‘exploitative’ and the ones with a slower growth rate known as ‘conservative’. The first category is having the higher photosynthetic capacity and efficient nitrogen uptake than the second. It was demonstrated that this activity shapes the microbiota from the soils to maintain this equilibrium. There is more denitrification activity in the lands with exploitative plants [4]. What I find to be the key in this fact is that consistency is the solution to stability. Might seem like a redundant sentence. But what created problems in the food value chain was this abrupt change in the food intake by the people.

There was a high rise in imperishable food products acquired, ‘suffocating’ the producers and retailers on this front. A parallel would be like killing the microorganisms for fast gains, and then the plants would also suffer by having no more nutrients left. It is a fact that the law of supply and demand is the foundation of the value chain, but these disruptions could do more harm in the long term.

The panic buying leads to a sharp increase in food waste, which depletes essential nutrients and energy put in the making of the products, but also creates significant environmental problems. [5]

In this race, due to, allegedly, survival in distress, people are trying to get most of the food products to not die of hunger. The plants are showing more wisdom by just taking the food and water that they need to perform all the metabolic activities and grow. They never take in excess, even if you apply fertiliser. There is a threshold that they will not pass and ‘overfeeding’ will not yield good results [6].

Indeed, the stocking of food for a more extended period can have a positive effect on the containment strategy of the virus because you would have less contact with potential vectors. But that has to be done rationally, altruistically and with sound objective information about the context in which you live. Unsurprisingly, the plants are doing that. With warmer temperatures in autumn when the trees are dropping off the leaves, it was observed a delay in the senescence of the leaves. Therefore, the trees are storing more nutrients as reserves to use in early spring, and fewer nutrients are in the leaves that are falling [7]. In a way, the trees understand that the temperatures are affecting more environmental parameters such as the humidity of the soils, which leads to fewer nutrients available in the spring. Therefore they store more ‘food ‘in their reserves. That is a ‘rational’ thing to do because it responds to the context without competing unfairly with other organisms. Their delayed senescence of the leaves is not under their control because they simply react to the warmer days. There is something to learn from responding objectively to data. It is relevant for the normal progression and understanding of the complex factors influencing the whereabouts to create some strategies to mitigate waste and also fight scarcity.

But the food was not the only resource that faced pressure amid the coronavirus pandemic. Medical equipment, especially safety equipment for the staff and ventilators needed for intensive care units quickly became scarce with hundreds and thousands of patients getting into the hospitals. It is challenging to predict this kind of pandemics and also very challenging to manage the states’ budgets to have always stock ready for the worst-case scenario. It is also a fact that the humankind doesn’t go to a pandemic the first time in its history. So some preparations could have been made in front. As stated before, more transparent and open communication between the governments could limit the impact of the virus significantly. Most of the governments were very late to apply strict measures to contain the spread of the virus.

The plants are more generous in that sense and communicate immediately by producing volatile organic compounds when they are under stress. The signals prime the neighbouring plants to do some morphological and physiological changes to prepare them for the same type of stress [8]. In that way, the plant community as a whole would have higher chances for survival. This fact goes back to the principle of ‘we are all in this together’.

Plants obeying rules

I was speaking about the mistrust, scepticism and delayed measures that created a fertile field for the spread of the virus previously. But even when s&%t hit the fan, there were still a lot of people finding ways to bend the rules or simply that didn’t care a single bit about the restrictions. From the ‘YOLO ‘spring breakers to ignorant people that found themselves casually strolling around. It’s part of raw stupidity and part recurrent mistrust in the authorities and the science, thus not grasping the full gravity of the situation. It was not surprising to see some governments declare a state of emergency early on and shut off the country knowing the relations of its citizen with the regulations. Other countries where respect to the rules and authorities are higher, afforded a more lax regulation policy. What is frustrating for the ones that are obeying the rules is seeing fellow citizens not doing the same. It makes them feel like their efforts will not be rewarded.

Thankfully, most people are playing their part. A report from Google showed a decrease in mobility where the regulations from the governments mirror in the figures. Italy showed a reduction of 94% of mobility in retail and recreation, 90% in parks and an increase of 24% in residential, with most people on lockdown at home. At the other end of the spectrum, Sweden has registered only 24% decrease in mobility at retail and recreation, an increase of 24% in parks and a negligible 5% increase in residential. These rates are relevant to the baseline calculated for five weeks, from January to February [9].

We are privileged to live in a free world, but the ‘I know better’ attitude can make a lot of harm to fellow members of the community. And the worst part is that the ones that potentially become vectors for the spread of the virus will not understand the effect of their actions. They will not be able to track their virus spread because they didn’t obey social distancing. The infection might reach somebody with other health issues that went to intensive care and possibly die. It’s the same issue as with the people not grasping the full effect of their behaviours to climate change. Of course, just a short trip to the local bakery by car will not kill polar bears on the other side of the Planet. Still, it is a small gesture that can add to other millions of tiny ‘ineffective’ gestures that could have a considerable impact.

The plants are obeying the rules to a tee. They know that using all the information gathered in millions of years of evolution is needed to successfully get out of a crisis created by pathogens. They also know that they are all in that together, so will never commute to a set of activities that will jeopardise other members of the community. The ecosystem’s strength is coming from each individual’s health and well-being. If there is something to learn from this coronavirus crisis is how connected we all are. And that the strength of the community, the nation and the Planet comes from the well-being of each member who can contribute back to the welfare of the rest. I hope we can learn this and apply it in the policies and strategies for developing the countries and the world.

And we should not become altruistic just with our species. We should understand that ‘we are all in this together’ means including all living life on Earth. Just taking care of our kind will have the same effect as selfishly taking care solely of ourselves. The plants are in relations with microorganisms, insects, birds and animals. The ecosystem services are not just intraspecific; they extend to all benefactors of the complex ecosystem. And the threat to one of the members of the community will result in a threat to the whole ecosystem well being. We should have the same approach and change our ‘business as usual’ practices.

Plant’s comeback after the crisis… recession?

As discussed previously, the governments had to impose strict mobility and social distancing regulation to a total lockdown in the more critical cases of Italy or Spain. These measures lead to the shut down of many businesses that hope to resume after a month or two. The only known about the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak is that it will be immense and could create a global recession. The magnitude of this effect is, however, not completely understood. Taking the model of China, it is aspected that the Western World that is most affected now will go back to normal and ease the restrictions starting mid of May. That is quite an optimistic view, but the ‘business as usual’ will not be back so fast. Especially the service orientated economies will be hit the hardest. It is estimated that each month of lockdown leads to an average decrease of 2–2.5% of the GDP [10]. People will lose their jobs, companies will shut down, and an unprecedented economic crisis might happen.

As said before, I will try to explain the economies of plants which seems to be a recurrent theme in all my posts. The economy and money are so crucial to our lives that I still have to find a connection in the Plants’ lives to be able to explain these concepts.

Some think that once the stress period is gone, the plants are almost immediately revived to full photosynthetic capacity as they were not affected by the stress. It’s a way to think that if you survive, you will thrive. That is not necessarily the case, and some studies showed that the recovery after the drought was dependent on the taxonomy and geographic area adaptation[11]. In other words, if the plants through millions of years of evolution adapted to the habitats that have frequent droughts, their recovery will be faster. The species which are exposed to the same stress factors in a less dry habitat will have a slower recovery.

What is this meaning for us as humans? How can we recover from this crisis?

We are definitely not adapted to this pandemic that we are facing now. So if we mirror plants recovery to stress, we will not recover quickly from this. But we also have the advantage of learning from the past economic crises, past pandemics and the power of prediction and future thinking that the other organisms don’t have. We also have more control in our nature or nurture. We decide and develop the policies and tools that are creating the ground for society. Our thinking can make it fertile or hostile.

The plants don’t have these tools, and if they did, they would use it to create a fertile ground in which to thrive alongside all other participants at this complex game of life. Everybody will have a part of the abundance they are creating by sharing and communicating continuously. There are always winners and losers in time of economic crisis. You never know on which side you will be. For the sake of humankind, the losers and winners should share the same ideal of creating a world with all winners, even if some will lose their magnitude of winning.

Plants’ for president during pandemics?

In this article, I have tried to look at the things that went wrong during the pandemic and see if I can find a correspondent into the plants’ world. I wanted to learn from them how to deal with a crisis and to better prepare for the future pandemics and disasters that will come. I don’t wish to undermine the gravity of the situation and make a stance for humanity’s stupidity versus the plants’ wisdom. I want to learn more about plants by looking for information about their resilience, adaptation and the sense of solidarity in the ecosystems. That said if we try to imagine that the plants as one organism that would rule the world, we would probably be considered a pest that it has to get rid of to thrive. Just looking at abandoned buildings or sites where nature took over and enriched the areas, is a definite argument for our uselessness. But that’s not the goal of this post. We should be more like plants in the sense of adopting honestly and humbly values that are so intrinsic to their way of being.

I hope the leaders learn from this horrible global pandemic and adopt a more ‘we are in this together ‘- worldwide approach to the politics. This pandemic showed how interconnected is the world we are living in and how the suffering in one geographic part can quickly become the suffering of the world as a whole. The other thing that the leaders and governments should learn is the resource use efficiency. Look at the world as not an infinite reservoir of resources and adopt a circular approach to regenerate the Planet. This approach is the way the plants are acting, and this approach made them thrive and survive for such a long time. Living in harmony with nature will not just help us grow more sustainably, but also protect us for future threats in the future.

There are far fetched hopes, to be honest. I am terrified of resuming ‘business as usual’ once it is safe to go back to life as it was. Many people are writing, speaking and hoping that this global pandemic will not go in history just as a statistical number, but instead be the root for a significant change. Whether that will be true or not, only time will tell. I hope that the world has seen at least what is most important, who are the real heroes and adjust the values to a more honest and humble world. I hope that the medical sector will receive a more prominent place in the countries budget. I hope that science will be trusted and supported. That all the pseudosciences will fade in the face of facts. I hope that the natural world will spark curiosity to advance our well being and science gets supported on all areas to create a sustainable development across the globe.

But the change should not be expected just from the governments and world leaders. We, as individual members of the community, country or the world, should adjust our values as well and adopt the same concepts explained through the lenses of the plants. I wrote about people that did not believe in the gravity of the virus and who didn’t respect the rules. The supposedly small bends in the regulations would create massive impacts on the severity of the situation. Everyone who didn’t stay at home became a vector for the virus to spread. Their small gestures of defiance could have lead to the infection affecting people that have other co-morbidities leading to death. So I hope that this global pandemic made people understand that their actions are more important than they thought. As I said before, this mirrors the behaviours of people and their effect on climate change. I hope that the small actions we do daily are now showing the cumulative impact it can have on the world we live in; therefore, on us.

The Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski developed the theory of ‘Positive Disintegration’ studying World war II survivors and their ability to find happiness from the difficult times they passed. We are going through tough times indeed, even though our job is to stay home, while the real heroes are out there on the front line against COVID-19. But these difficult times should be used for contemplation and opportunity for significant societal change.

Let’s try to act more like plants during these difficult times. I know I’ll do.

I’m trying to use the world of the plants as a mirror to the human society, not because I want to prove any point or unveil a truth that will save the world. I am doing it in awe of the plants and an exercise to look for more scientific facts on how the plants operate. This exercise helps me put things in perspective. It exponentially grows my curiosity for nature and in the process if we can learn a thing or two to make our life better, why not?

If you reached the end, congratulation! You are patient! If you liked the post and would like to read more such ramblings, please hit me a message. Send me your ideas on human personality traits or societal things that I can explore through the lenses of the plants.

References:

Phytosophy is an anthology of thought experiments that explore the intrinsic human condition through the lenses of the plants.Are plants courageous, lazy, or humble? Do they procrastinate, cheat or sacrifice? What lessons can we learn from the nature in order to make our lives more meaningful?