Plants & Human Affairs (BIOL106)  -  Stephen G. Saupe, Ph.D.; Biology Department, College of St. Benedict/St. John's University, Collegeville, MN 56321; ssaupe@csbsju.edu; http://www.employees.csbsju.edu/ssaupe

The Botany of Desire:  The Apple

 Important Terms & Concepts  Define or describe the following.  Can you give an example? 

1. coevolution
2. domestication
3. native
4. naturalized
5. introduced
6. cultivated
7. artifical selection
8. natural selection

 Questions: 

1. Pollan argues that �flowers and spuds have manipulated human desires � conscious or otherwise � to help them be �fruitful�.� (p xv)   And he wonders, �Did I choose to plant these potatoes, or did the potato make me do it?� (p xv)  He further states that his book ��is as much about human desires that connect us to these plants as it is about the plants themselves.� (xvii) And, he sees �...plants instead as willing partners in an intimate and reciprocal relationship with us.�  What does he mean by all of this?  Do you agree?
    
2. Pollan describes plants as �nature�s alchemists.�  Do you agree with this description?  Offer a hypothesis why might this have evolved? (xix)
    
3. Recall the plant way of life?  Since plants are stationary they have had to evolve some strategies for a non-motile lifestyle.  Identify some strategies.
    
4. �Design in nature is but a concatenation of accidents, culled by natural selection until the result is so beautiful or effective as to seem a miracle of purpose.� (xxi)  Do you agree?
    
5. Describe Johnny Appleseed.
    
6. Explain why it is incorrect to call apples, �The American Fruit.�
    
7. What does it mean that apples don�t �come true from seed?�
    
8. What is hard cider?  How is it made?  What is applejack?
    
9. Apple seeds contain a metabolic poison.  Identify this poison.  Why do they possess such chemicals?  How is the poison formed?  Why don�t the plants poison themselves?
    
10. How are apples propagated?
     
11. What is the scientific name of the wild apple? cultivated apple?
     
12. Pollan described Johnny Appleseed as the �American Dionysus.�  Who was Dionysus?  What is the connection?  Do you agree?
     
13. When the settlers arrived in North America, what sweeteners did they encounter?
     
14. Do you agree that �sweetness is a force in evolution� (19) and �Could it be that sweetness is the prototype of all desire?�
     
15. What is your favorite variety of apple?  Do a search and learn where this variety  originated.
     
16. Have we always knows that �An apple a day keeps the doctor away?�
     
17. Do you agree with Pollan�s argument that Catholics embraced the grape while Protestants the more wholesome apple?
     
18. What is a germplasm bank?  Why is it important
     
19. Who was Vavilov?  (53)
     
20. Do you agree that apples are the �true democratic fruit?� (48)
     
21. Were apples part of the �the Garden of Eden?�

Other

• I have placed a Powerpoint on "apples" in our Public Folder.

Last updated:  02/23/2005 � Copyright  by SG Saupe