Commonplaces

In case you missed this part in school, Gregor Mendel grew and charted data on 28,000 individual pea plants. He wasn’t just a gardener who stumbled across the idea of inherited traits. He was an unacknowledged genius who dedicated himself to methodical research for over a decade.

The Plant Hunter’s Atlas by Ambra Edwards

Twice, tree species thought long extinct have been rediscovered in a limited area and sold commercially to ensure its continued survival: the Wollemi Pine (Australia) and the Dawn Redwood (China).

The saffron crocus has been domesticated longer than human record. It’s been found in 50,000-year-old cave art paint and has lost the ability to perpetuate itself and depends on human intervention. It’s been long lauded as an antidepressant.

Francis Masson brought a cycad from South Africa to England in the late 1700s, where it still lives in Kew Gardens. It may be the oldest potted plant still living.

Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams

Why do we have breasts anyway?

Anthropologist Gillian Bentley developed the "flat face" theory – "in order for newborns to get through our unusually narrow bipedal hips, their faces need to be flat. Flat faces and flat chests don't work well together." There's the camel theory, that breasts are fat deposits, which render a woman's fertility and lactation more resilient to a bout of famine. There's a theory about the specific suckling technique the breast engenders, which develops the muscles needed for speech. 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jul/13/breasts-florence-williams-review

Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History by Philippa Gregory

What lay on the road was no mere handful of snake. It was the copperhead at last, golden under the street lamp. I hope to see everything in this world before I die. I knelt on the road and stared. Its head was wedge-shaped and fell back to the unexpected slimness of neck. The body itself was thick, tense, electric. Clearly this wasn’t black snake looking down from the limbs of a tree, or green snake, or the garter, whizzing over the rocks. Where these had, oh, such shyness, this one had none. When I moved a little, it turned and clamped its eyes on mine; then it jerked toward me. I jumped back and watched as it flowed on across the road and down into the dark. My heart was pounding. I stood a while, listening to the small sounds of the woods and looking at the stars. After excitement we are so restful. When the thumb of fear lifts, we are so alive.

— Mary Oliver, "May"

New and Selected Poems, Volume 2

When I Say I Forgive You, Know This

By Brenna Twohy

I did not bury the hatchet.

I have the hatchet in my hands.

"It was only after the agricultural revolution, then still more after the rise of cities, that this 'happy' condition came to an end, ushering in civilization and the state, which also meant the appearance of written literature, science, and philosophy, but at the same time, almost everything bad in human life: patriarchy, standing armies, mass executions, and annoying bureaucrats demanding that we spend much of our lives filling in forms."

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber

"Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?"

Mary Oliver

"Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches"