Why Do We Care About Rare Plants

I had just recieved a job with the Nature Conservancy to write a paper on a rare plant called wright's dogweed (Adenophyllum wrightii). Very little is known about it. In Arizona it occurs in the NE part of the state in Apache county. It is a little anuual in the Asteraceae (composite family). I happened to have a conversation with a non-plant person (he's a cook), and I was describing to him the work I was doing. He asked me, "why are you studying this plant, is it special?"

"well, it is just an annual with yellow flowers...not all that particularly attractive...just a little thing that happens to be really rare, and that little is known about it."

Then he said, "well then why are you getting paid to do research on it?"

I stopped for a minute. I never thought twice about it before. It's a plant and I am a plant freak so of course it's important. But why should it be important to him? But the answer came to me suddenly, "well...we are human. We are supposed to be different than the other creatures. More conciouss, more aware, and with that comes a responsibility I think. I care about this plant because I want to know why it is struggling to survive. Is is humans causing it problems? Is it just a natural occurance? I care about this because it is my world and I want to know what is going on in it. I think I owe it to the natural economy that sustains me to pay attention to what is going on out there. Nobody knows much about this species. I want to know and understand it."

The answer seemed to be good for him, "well I guess I am glad someone cares cause I couldn't pay attention."

The answer doesn't have to be good enough for me because I love plants. I love seeing all the different species and their relationships other species and their relationship to the ecology. To me it is a fascinating story, and written not by humans hands only, but by the hands of the conglomerate of living species that make up life. Especially here in our arid climate we find species that need to be even more creative to make it. How they do or do not is important and interesting to me; as the creatures we are, as much as we take from the world, we owe it to look up from our own grinding stone a little bit to watch another creature at its own grinding stone. It makes us appreciate what we have a little more. It does for me at least.

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