Declaration of Ethnobotanical Rights

Friends,

Raven and I first drafted the ancestor of this declaration in 1989 whilst tripping around Northern Arizona in a beat up old Honda Civic.  Here is the latest incarnation which I submit here for the purpose of receiving your comments, suggestions, grammar corrections- whatever.

LM

Declaration of Ethnobotanical Rights

Understanding that plants have historically been a source for food, fiber, fuel, and medicine, and that the human family has been traditionally sustained through its relationship to the botanical world, it is hereby declared that:

1.     All plants species are naturally created equal, each bearing its own unique qualities and inherent value. 

2.     All people have an inalienable right to cultivate, utilize, study, and share information regarding any species of plant.  As this Sacred Trust lies beyond the natural jurisdiction of any human agency, this natural relationship shall not be infringed providing that it does not actively endanger native ecological communities or public welfare.

3.     No individual person should be prohibited from the cultivation of any plant species for medicinal, spiritual, aesthetic, or other personal, non-mercantile purposes.

4.     While reasonable governmental taxes may be levied on the sale of agricultural products, no person or organization should be impeded in the commercial adaptation and trade of any plant, or plant product, providing such commercial activities do not violate civil or criminal statutes or other public safety codes regulating the commerce or transfer of specific plant materials, and are not contaminating of the genetic qualities and well-being of other species or ecological communities.

The Strangest Flower In The Sonoran Desert Smells Like A What?

Passiflora mexicana

Not a common plant, but where it grows, it creates nice stands of perennial vines climbing up into the mesquites.  A two-lobed passion vine leaf, most commonly they have three.  It likes moist places in riparian zones and these special places are becoming less common.  Find some before they're gone.

The herbalists among us know of the passively sedative qualities of this family of medicines, a reliable, if feebly potent anti-depressant. How I found this strange Venusian looking flower is, for me, a true example of applied ethnobotany, or how plants whisper, or how the monkey finds the banana, and how the philosopher finds the stone.

In the second year of working a vegetable garden in an east Tucson mesquite bosque, I finally stopped what I was doing in order to investigate a persistent, oddly fetid aroma wafting in the humid monsoon-time air.  You see, friends of the Desert Magic Toad can attest to the weird aroma of freshly vaporized Bufo alvaruis venom.  Like its chemical relation dimethytryptamine, the smoke smells like a heady mix of sasquatch scat, roses, and sex.  Well this particular flower, it turns out, churns out the exact aromatic signature as the hyperdimensional incense of the sacred smoke of toad venom.  So initially, the question was why am I smelling toad venom in the garden?  I believe that you were with me, Miss Wendy, when following my nose to a stand of healthy mesquites where I was looking on the ground for a squished toad, I looked up and saw this amazing flower from space.

So here's where the applied ethnobotany happens.  I already happened to know from my reading on the genus Passiflora that these medicines are manufacturers of harmine and harmaline, a class of compounds which are monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), these types chemicals often being designed into our primitive big pharma antidepressants.  Additionally, harmine and harmaline are moderately active psychoactives whose presence in the Amazonian shamanic medicine ayuhuasca is the catalyst for the amazing psychedelic effects of the aformentioned dimethyltryptamines, which are supplied by a second plant source and mixed together to create the mystic Amazonian brew, the breakfast of shamans.

So, what have we here?  A plant whose flowering aroma mimics that of the very medicine whose combinatorial effects might be an endemic, convergent habitat, desert ayuhuasca?  Clearly, this association was specific enough to signal the hippie to start beating the bushes in search of the sacred, but humble, unspoken thing.  When the monkey eventually peels this banana, I'll let you know how it tastes. 

My Friend and Mentor, Dr. Frank Crosswhite

In my 50 years, I have been blessed by an intimate circle of remarkable teachers, elders, and societal leaders that I can only attribute to an amazing grace of coincidence and providence.  I was raised with my parents driving United Farm Workers’ leader Cesar Chavez around in our ’66 Impala, for example.  My dad was friendly with major political influences of the 1960’s and later, on my own, I fell into a circle of plant-influenced cultural mavericks such as Dr. Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna, and Dr. Alexander Shulgin.  Eventually, I knocked at the grass-thatched hut door of the 100+ year-old peyote elder and Huichol shaman, Don Jose “Matsuwa” Rios, considered by many to be the “real Don Juan”.

Amongst this personal grand gallery of human influences for which I am forever grateful, none has influenced my daily doings more than Dr. Frank Crosswhite.  This month marks two years since Frank passed away, leaving one more unfilled slot in my own personal Mount Rushmore of plant heroes that I can sow the seeds of conversation with.  However, I never feel far from Frank each and every time I hand-water plants, something Frank seemed to be perpetually thrilled with doing, despite the fact that his professional compatriots found mystifying, if not annoying, that a man with such special academic talents could easily have consigned this monotonous chore to lesser trained monkeys such as myself.  I understood however that to water plants was a joy to Frank, as it is to me, understanding that it is not just water we are dispensing to each individual organism- it is Love.

Frank was the Executive Editor of “Desert Plants”a remarkable publication of the University of Arizona.  In his editorial role, Frank avoided the dusty language of academia, instead relating to the reader’s childlike wonder of plant magic as if each species were a gift under a Christmas tree whose delights are just waiting to be unwrapped.  One of my most memorable of Frank’s editorials was simply titled, “The Goodness of Plants”.

Here is an excerpt from Frank’s Arizona Daily Star obituary whose full text can be viewed here, and which I highly recommend to my fellow plant enthusiasts.

Crosswhite's balance of academic endeavors with hands-on work made him something of an anomaly, Bach said.

"Most academic people, they have a Ph.D. after their name, they are notorious for book knowledge, but they don't have much practical experience," Bach said. "That's what made Frank different from most academics."

It wasn't just plant experts who appreciated the Crosswhites' work. They were adept at articulating their knowledge to people of all ages, education levels and backgrounds.

"Both he and Carol were able to talk about plants in ways that were correct botanically and formally, but at whatever level their audience might be, from fifth-graders to fellow scientists," Upchurch said.

Frank Crosswhite may have been a little too enthusiastic, his wife said, but no one ever complained.

"He had encyclopedic knowledge at his command in so many different fields," she said. "He could make a story that was just absolutely fascinating based on what, to other people, would be dry-as-dust facts."

On tours, "he would have people feel and touch and taste the plants. The only thing people were not prepared for was, if they kept asking questions, he'd keep answering them. His tours would extend far beyond their intent. They (visitors) would come back just as the arboretum was about to close with sunburned noses, but still asking questions," Carol Crosswhite said.

This man who looked like a character straight out of the 1950’s, with an unchanging crew cut and conservative style, skewed my perceptions of what spirit might reside in any particular body.  Frank’s philosophical musings were just as hip as any Tom Robbins or Ken Kesey novel, but were always guided by a pragmatic allegiance to the theme of humanity’s unfolding, lock-step march to the future with our plant allies.  It occurs to me that Frank was best situated to accurately assess the fallen state of humanity’s society because of, not in spite of, his being embedded in a 1950’s worldview.

Below, in honor of my friend and big brother in the field of ethnobotany, with whom I miss our hours of conversation so much, I give you two paragraphs of Frank’s editorial (Desert Plants, Vol. 9, #2), “The Moral Element in the March of Science, Technology and Agriculture”.

Frank, you are a real plant whisperer.  I thank you so much for everything that you so freely shared with me.  Hell, you even paid me to listen.  I swear I feel you with me all the time I’m laying down the water and the love on my plants.  (Eyes welling up with tears…)

“A normal, living, breathing, human animal is attuned to a balanced pattern of functions whereby in the regular course of the day a variety of work, play, rest, enjoyment, and other activities are intermeshed, allowing a wide variety of inborn genetic adaptations to be exercised.  It is still possible, although unlikely, for most of us to live in such a pristine way- to pick fruit from a tree for breakfast, to till a small field in the morning, to weave a cloth, to eat a hot rabbit stew in the cold of winter, to watch the habits of migrating waterfowl, to pick herbs for tea, to add some thatch to a leaky roof, to make a stone wall, to milk a cow, and then the next day to do different things.  A person having such a life would be a social misfit.  For the good of society this person would be expected to specialize- perhaps do nothing all day long other than remove staples from checks sent to the IRS, or sit in a factory gluing rubber soles to left size 71/2 shoes, or sort mail in a post office, or sweep floors in a downtown skyscraper, or operate a bottle-capping machine.”

“Our society thrives on such a division of labor even though each individual has had to deviate from the regular course of life to which this human organism is genetically adapted.  In the dictionary sense of the word pervert, society is truly guilty of perverting the individual by “causing deviation from the right, true, or regular course” of the individual’s biologically adapted life.  In a sense the individual human is to society what a milk cow is to a farmer.”