• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

On the Importance of Plants

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
One of the themes of religion is reconnecting. It encourages us to be more mindful of our relationships with the world around us, cultivating meaningfulness and gratitude. Studying sciences, while not conventionally regarded as an act of religious study, helped me engage in this reconnection by learning more about the world around me. I took an ethnobotany course at university that made me mindful of the depth of our dependency on plants. In this thread, I invite us to explore our relationships with plants, whether through science or song.

Oh sacred green ones,
Without you the very air I breathe would not be!
You are the clothes that I wear,
The food that I eat,

And the shelter that keeps me safe and warm.

While you are not here for my sake,
Without you here I would simply not be.
In gratitude, I sing.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
I was just pondering plants earlier, and while I recognize so many different ones by sight(when there isn't snow), I have no idea what they are called, or what their properties are.

Do you know of any good online resources for learning what's what around here(I believe we're not too far from each other in location)?
 

John53

I go leaps and bounds
Premium Member
I was just pondering plants earlier, and while I recognize so many different ones by sight(when there isn't snow), I have no idea what they are called, or what their properties are.

Do you know of any good online resources for learning what's what around here(I believe we're not too far from each other in location)?

I use a facebook group that has some knowledgeable people in it. They not only say what it is but explain why they came to the conclusion. Maybe there's one for your area.
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Studying sciences, while not conventionally regarded as an act of religious study, helped me engage in this reconnection by learning more about the world around me.

Did you read "The Botany of Desire"?
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
I use a facebook group that has some knowledgeable people in it. They not only say what it is but explain why they came to the conclusion. Maybe there's one for your area.

I'm actually not on Facebook. (Tried it years ago, and just hated it.)
 

John53

I go leaps and bounds
Premium Member
I'm actually not on Facebook. (Tried it years ago, and just hated it.)

I hated it at first then I worked out how to use it, don't be friends with family, old friends etc. I just use it for a couple of bird groups and the plant group and recently an insect group.
 

The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member
I was just pondering plants earlier, and while I recognize so many different ones by sight(when there isn't snow), I have no idea what they are called, or what their properties are.

Do you know of any good online resources for learning what's what around here(I believe we're not too far from each other in location)?


I have a phone app (I don't think you have a smartphone though). It's called PlantNet. I take a photo say what part of the plant it is (leaf, bark, flower, fruit, etc) and it bounces it off of a database it seems.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
I have a phone app (I don't think you have a smartphone though). It's called PlantNet. I take a photo say what part of the plant it is (leaf, bark, flower, fruit, etc) and it bounces it off of a database it seems.

You're right; I haven't a smartphone. That sounds cool, though.

(You sent me a link for a cool book on the topic once, too, but money's tight right at the moment, or I'd have bought it by now!)
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Do you know of any good online resources for learning what's what around here(I believe we're not too far from each other in location)?

If you are looking for something locality-specific, the availability of a good resource is going to vary especially if you are wanting something online. Your local public library should have volumes that cover the local flora. But since the flora of a state is going to be in the thousands, a good place to start can actually be learning patterns of plant families. This helps narrow down what you are looking at to make field guides and local floras easier to navigate.

When I did my field botany course in college, we used this classic here: Botany in a Day: Thomas J. Elpel's Herbal Field Guide t…

This is the older edition, but to be honest? Unless you are really into plant systematics and all the major changes that happened in phylogenetic trees over the last couple decades, the way things are grouped here make more sense if you are trying to identify by stuff you can actually see. I get why botanical sciences have moved towards ensuring monophyletic groups and all, but it can lead to some weird stuff when trying to learn patterns for field identification. It still breaks my brain a little bit that Aceraceae (maples) is no longer a plant family, for example.


Did you read "The Botany of Desire"?

No, but my folks, knowing I'm a botany nerd, told me I should read it. :D
 

The Hammer

[REDACTED]
Premium Member
Food, air, medicine, heat/light, shelter, and in many other innumerable ways do I and we depend on plants. Without them we could not be here. Trees = Life.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Plants and phytoplankton generate the oxygen in Earth's atmosphere.

Oxygen's a very reactive element. Without continuous production it would soon bond with other elements and we'd be back with our original, anærobic atmosphere.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
I was watching a TV show about trees and one woman was describing how trees take the nutrients under the ground and bring them up into the tree and into the fruit of the trees for the animals and birds etc and she, as she became emotional about it, that it was just perfect.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
I hated it at first then I worked out how to use it, don't be friends with family, old friends etc. I just use it for a couple of bird groups and the plant group and recently an insect group.
Same with me. I am friendless :(. I'm on fb solely for alcohol free drinks groups. Friendly, helpful, stays on topic. (What! Secret Chief stays on topic? Surely not).
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
In this thread, I invite us to explore our relationships with plants, whether through science or song.
We are technological people, and we need a renewed interest in Botany. We need to put Botany into a technical throne and get more research money for it. Too much is directed towards Nuclear and towards Energy.

How about making GMO plants that grow into homes? That's entirely within our ability to do. That should be a goal, such as national goal. We could get plants to do it.
 

wellwisher

Well-Known Member
One of the themes of religion is reconnecting. It encourages us to be more mindful of our relationships with the world around us, cultivating meaningfulness and gratitude. Studying sciences, while not conventionally regarded as an act of religious study, helped me engage in this reconnection by learning more about the world around me. I took an ethnobotany course at university that made me mindful of the depth of our dependency on plants. In this thread, I invite us to explore our relationships with plants, whether through science or song.

Oh sacred green ones,
Without you the very air I breathe would not be!
You are the clothes that I wear,
The food that I eat,

And the shelter that keeps me safe and warm.

While you are not here for my sake,
Without you here I would simply not be.
In gratitude, I sing.

Plants make the oxygen we breath. The current 21% oxygen level of the earth was due to plants. Plants have altered the surface of the earth making it an oxidizing atmosphere. This potential was needed for plant life. Solar energy drives photosynthesis using CO2 and H2O as the reactants to make oxygen and sugars, that plant use for energy and building materials. This becomes food for animals who use the oxygen to help drive metabolism.

Plants are not biased or political and will eat any source of CO2, since it is all the same molecule. Tests have been shown that the higher the CO2 levels, the better all plants will perform. I am not sure why better performing plants has been made taboo by one political party, seeing that the earth shows natural cycles of CO2, with enhanced plants vitality for evolution following the CO2 cycles. When CO2 goes down, plant vitality goes down, and the earth cools. It is all connected.

An interesting paradox is connected to the plant color, green. Plants are green because after they sort through all the wavelengths of light that the sun provides, green energy is given off as a waste product. Plants prefer red and blue light and will hardly use any green. They fart green out. Yet may worship the farts of plants.

Those who do not wish plants to do better with more CO2 food; the up cycle of plants, seem to worship their waste farts; waste or green energy. It is a bazaar anti-plant religion that appear to see upside down, when it comes to the natural cause and affect of plants. They do not do much better with animals thinking we can ignore their unique DNA, with lions able to become gazelles, since DNA does not matter when it comes to breeding and behavior. Science needs to speak up and not just cower due to fear of publication censorship and other forms of political retribution. The twitter files does show these clowns cheat and are mean but right is right.

If we assume CO2 will warm the earth, warming means more evaporation of ocean water and therefore more CO2 and H2O in the atmosphere. This is paradise cycle for plants. With their enhanced vitality, they can lead the next change in global evolution of plant and animal life. Why bet against the plants?
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I was just pondering plants earlier, and while I recognize so many different ones by sight(when there isn't snow), I have no idea what they are called, or what their properties are. Do you know of any good online resources for learning what's what around here(I believe we're not too far from each other in location)?

Here's the one my wife uses: Plant.id - Plant identification app

The 2 Best Plant Identification Apps | Reviews by Wirecutter (nytimes.com) recommended Pl@ntNet identify (plantnet.org) and also liked iNaturalist - Apps on Google Play

This looked promising as well: PictureThis - Plant Identifier on the App Store (apple.com)
 
Top