Frankfurt, a short visit on the way to Venice.
You had time to spare, waiting for the plane, so decided to have a wonder through the city.
Of course you went to the park, by the river Rhine, to find no surprise.
The usual players.
At the moment you feel like guilty of plagiarism, borrowing the quest of the German duo, iriz-a -maz, and discovering that dandelion, clover, plantain and nettles are but a few of the global players.
But you feel like adding a bit of your own tormented thinking process here.
It seems like those plants follow humans, they live everywhere we live, weather permitting -and even not permitting- those species became so adaptable (just like human) that you wouldn’t be surprise to find them in cities so environmentally apart like Oslo or Townsville.
They are our cities companions, they are our symbiotic botanical counterpart, as much as rats, pigeons and cockroaches.
You read somewhere about this: there are some plants so adapted to live in humans environment, they just do not need invitation in any ecosystems, they come as soon as we settle.
You feel the urge to take it a step further too: all of those plants are also important ingredients of our ethobotanical knowledge. Would it be because they are so abundant in and around human settlements that we became accustomed to them and started to find way to use them?
Or, rather, is it because they are successful pioneer like us humans, we got eventually to depend on them, adapting ourselves to use them and eat them.
Are the plants which adapted or us? Or us to them?
Probably both.
In any case those “weeds” are connected to us in ways way more intrinsic that mere, space filling opportunistic species.
You’re coming from the far South-East, the sun following the plane as it travels on the other side of the globe. You come from such a different ecosystem and yet so familiar.
We humans, in all of our pseudo-cultural differences are all over the world. So are the plants related to us.
