Greg Turissini Written Assignment 10
Drayton, Richard. "Plants and Power, and Notes." In Nature's Government, Science, Imperial Britain, and the 'Improvement' of the World, 26-49, 281-286. New York: Yale University Press, 2000.
Abstract
In "Plants and Power”, Richard Drayton “explore[s] the complicated relations of the science of plants to power”[1], unearthing the history of botany in England. Drayton suggests that English botany gained “patronage” through the divine power bestowed upon the royalty, the middle class’s desire to discover nature, and the growing intellectual allure to botany. Drayton asserts that like King Solomon’s inheritance of Adam’s natural world, the “Imperial Prince” utilizes nature to promote both understanding and learning. The natural law was a crucial element in the development of the English law; thus botany—through the widespread development of both private and public gardens—became a fundamental instrument of knowledge for the King’s people. Initially, these powerful botanists “had scarcely any interest in the medicinal value of plants: they sought size, colour, and strangeness of flowers, and succulence of fruit.”[2] Yet new advances during the Enlightenment—highlighted by Carl Linnaeus’ revolutionary classification of plants—allowed for English botanists to “name and reorder”[3] both foreign and domestic plants. The royal botanical garden encouraged the Linnaean classification of plants, thus rendering the English monarch as both the provider and the participant of knowledge, having to prove his worthiness to his subjects. This new “Imperial garden” exemplified not only the virtues of the King, but also those of the British Empire as a whole. Botany and the English botanical garden, like today’s cars, planes, and mansions, became a symbol of not just wealth, but also of ultimate power. I believe that Drayton’s assessment of the history of English botany is somewhat misleading, as I might tend to side with his first chapter, outlining “how the expansion of European trade and settlement into the wider world shaped the science of botany.”[4] His utilization of the “Imperial Theory” to justify the development of botany fails is prone to inaccuracy—as it is biblical roots are nebulous at best.
[1] P. 27
[2] P. 33
[3] P. 41
[4] P. 45