Grass is Not Just Grass

Having grown up in a tiny Swiss village of 1,200 inhabitants, located in a valley in between hills covered with fields and forests, the non-human world has always made up a large part of my familiar environment. Almost fairytale-like, the singing of the birds outside my window used to wake me up in the mornings, morning frost on the fields announced the coming winter, and crossing paths with deer, badgers, or foxes while jogging was part of my daily routine – thus, the presence of nature was in my human life was nothing out of the ordinary for me.

However, one experience with and in the non-human world I remember as having stood out as especially thrilling and magical was my herbarium school project – although in the very beginning, after having received the instruction of putting together a collection of 150 different dried plants that are mounted and systematically classified for study, I was not too excited about this time-consuming and meticulous task.

My high school biology professor, Professor Heitz, was a renown specialist of botany and the curator of the herbarium of the Swiss Society of botany, who dedicated his life to the study of plants. To be able to share and convey his love for the flora and fauna of Switzerland, Professor Heitz had become a high school teacher and with my class being his very last one before his retirement, he seemed especially compelled to achieve this goal.

While Professor Heitz put great time and effort into teaching the subject of biology, he expected the very same dedication from his students, which made his class challenging for all of us but at the same time highly educational. His assignments were complex and time-consuming, demanding for the students to immerse themselves in the subject to gain a real understanding of it.

The scholastic climax of the class formed the senior project of composing a collection of 150 different dried plants that are mounted and systemically classified for study – a so-called herbarium. In other words, the assignment consisted of getting out into nature, collecting plants – it could be leafs of trees, flowers, grasses, etc. – drying them by putting them into a plant press and once completely dry, classifying them using a plant classification guide, recording a detailed description about the plant, its appearance and its natural habitat, and then beautifully arranging them in a folder. Not surprisingly, my class, including me, didn’t seem utterly thrilled about the reception of this instruction of how to complete the project, as the numerous work hours it would require to make our own herbarium were already calling our names.

However, we had no option but to get to work. The following weeks, I spent every possible hour either in the woods or in a field, with the plant classification guide under one arm, a bag for my collection of plants in the other, and a magnifying glass in my pocket, searching for 150 different organisms, which formed part of the flora and fauna of the environment I lived in. And once I really took on the assignment, my negative attitude towards it changed completely. Being forced to look closely to look at the immense variety of living entities that formed the nature I lived my life in, I came to realize the scope of biodiversity that existed.

The task shifted my focus of looking at nature as a backdrop to my human activity to acknowledging the fact that my human existence is embedded in the complex of the billions of existences, human or non-human, that together make up life on this planet. I recognized that grass is not just grass, but there exists a gigantic variety among the different forms of grasses, each of which possesses unique characteristics. At the same time, though, there exist families of plants that are related to each other, that share certain features while each of them retains its uniqueness at the same time.

In this sense, the experience of composing my own herbarium allowed me look at plants form a different perspective that I used to. This new perspective, then, enabled me to experience the most magical engagement with the non-human world I’ve had: an engagement based on the realization that plants, like I, as a human being, a living entities that form together the complexity of life on earth. Not only did it change my appreciation of the non-human, but instead, it changed the relationship I see myself being in with the environment.

Consequently, “saving nature” saving nature is not just something we should “concern” ourselves with but we should make it one of the top priorities on our human agenda. Nature does not simply compose a background in front of which human activities are performed but instead, human beings are one component of life of earth and nature forms another. Thus, we are intimately connected with and dependent on nature as with our her, life on earth is not possible.

However, it is important for me to point out that I don’t want to make the argument that we should “save nature” for the sake of humanity. Engaging with the flora and fauna that surrounds us, I come to realize that human beings are just a small part of life. Instead, “saving nature” is crucial to allow life in general on the planet earth, as without the non-human world, not only humanity, but life in general will no longer be possible.

Quite honestly, at times I feel like human beings, as a form of life, might no be able to live on earth forever and I am not sure whether I think this is a bad thing – many other species have become extinct before. However, what I think cannot happen is that human beings, as one single species that through its technological capabilities has come to be a driver of environmental change, not only destroy their own capabilities for life but also those of all other species or other forms of life.