Plant Blindness

Plants fuel life on Earth by tapping the sun's energy. But if plants are the main mediators between the physical and biological worlds, why do most people tend to appreciate animals so much more than plants? That question is at the center of a new campaign whose rallying cry is “Prevent Plant Blindness.” The aim of the campaign is to liberate students from the many traps that lead to a lack of appreciation for and understanding of plants, say its leaders, botanist-educators James Wandersee of Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge, and Elizabeth Schussler of the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center, in Aiken, South Carolina. Wandersee runs LSU's 15° Laboratory (www.15degreelab.com), which takes its name from the observation that people prefer to view objects that are between 0 and 15 degrees below eye level. In 1998, Wandersee and Schussler introduced the term plant blindness after years of discussion, literature searching, investigation, and “a fair amount of trepidation,” says Wandersee. They define plant blindness broadly, including “the inability to see or notice the plants in one's own environment, leading to the inability to recognize the importance of plants in the biosphere and in human affairs.” Plant blindness also comprises an “inability to appreciate the aesthetic and unique biological features” of plants and “the misguided, anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to animals, leading to the erroneous conclusion that they are unworthy of human consideration.”