It is amazing—the average child reaches manhood or womanhood with a surprising lack of knowledge concerning the simplest natural objects about it. Educated in the great colleges of the country, having laboured through “courses” in botany, the student too often comes forth with a vague impression that “chlorophyll is green stuff,” “plants are fertilised by bees,” and with decided likes and dislikes for plants in the edible form of table vegetables. The fact that in studying plants he has been studying living organisms, beings which think and feel, which have souls and worship, fellow members of a great universe, has never entered his thought. The appalling thing in this regarding of plants as mere things is not the apparent slight to the plant, but the real loss to the student in his lack of appreciation of the wonder and beauty around him.
Royal Dixon (1885-1962 was, quite simply, one of the most intriguing nature writers from the era between Thoreau and World War II that I have yet encountered. He approached nature from a Christian religious perspective, like many 19th century natural history authors, particularly in England. Yet from that base emerged an enduring conviction that all living beings — plants (including trees), birds, water animals, insects, and all other animals — have a mind and a soul of their own, just like human beings. The implications of that are as profound now as they were over a hundred years ago — that all life is to be respected, and that all living beings are fellow-voyagers through the cosmos. Dixon’s life trajectory is one that a would-be biographer might only dream about. Born in Huntsville, Texas, he was a child actor and dancer. Following his schooling, he worked for five years as a curator of plant collections at the Field Museum of Chicago. He went on from there to become a staff writer for the Houston Chronicle and found a school for creative writing. Meanwhile, he co-founded the First Church of Animal Rights in Manhattan in 1921, with 300 congregants. For decades, he lived openly in Houston with his partner, Chester Snowdon, an artist who illustrated several of Dixon’s works. A prolific author, Dixon wrote (and co-wrote) quite a few books about how plants and animals are like human beings, beginning with The Human Side of Plants in 1914. He also wrote a book advocating for the “Americanization” of immigrants. And did I mention several works of fiction, including books of animal stories for children, an early science fiction/fantasy novel, and a novel in black dialect set in the South? To answer the inevitable question, yes, I am seriously considering undertaking his biography, a feat that has not yet been accomplished.
The Human Side of Plants was his first book. It is an elegant volume, with a lovely cover illustration of pitcher plants and several gorgeous color reproductions of artwork showing other plants, such as wisteria, in full bloom. The illustrations are tipped in. Then there are dozens of full-page black and white photographs, also. From his text (and the ownership history of another book in the series — stay tuned), I am confident that he intended readers to be both adults and older children (perhaps tweens and above). Reading it, I was reminded a bit of Ripley’s Believe It or Not as it shared accounts of all sorts of plants doing peculiar (and humanlike) things. (Ripley’s first Believe It or Not cartoon came out four years later.) I found myself reading with my smartphone beside me, periodically challenging some of the more outrageous claims Dixon made. The results were surprising. Most of what Dixon reported has turned out to be accurate. (I will share some of those instances below.) Maybe 10% or 15% of the stories were hoaxes. At the time, though, with the information resources available to him, I can understand why Dixon might have believed (or wanted to believe, at least) that some of them were true.
As I noted earlier, Dixon distingished trees from other plants, devoting a later book just to trees. As a result, herbaceous plants get top billing, along with woody vines and occasional shrubs. In order to make his case that plants are like us, his book enumerates different categories of similarity, some of which strike me as less than flattering to plants and humans alike or simply don’t sound all that human at all. Based upon Dixon’s chapter titles, plants walk, fish, see, entertain, and sleep. Plants also (like some humans) plunder and murder, kidnap, and keep a standing army. Yet other chapters tell of plants that eat insects, build islands, and hide their blossoms and fruit. I have yet to meet a person who does any of these things. Looking at Dixon’s entire list of common characteristics, there are quite a few that are particularly human, like telling stories, caring for others, and solving complex problems that are (understandably) absent from the list. The ultimate impact of the book (following both my reading of the words and some selective Internet truthing) was mostly a sense that plants are more fascinating than I had thought before, and that the book was in some ways ahead of its time. I don’t think I am quite ready yet to classify plants as “human”.
The very fact that I learned about some plant oddities that were entirely new to me is truly astounding for a book on plants over 100 years old. For the sake of full disclosure, though, I will begin with some completely absurd cases from the volume. First, accounts of a man-eating Vampire Vine growing on the shores of Lake Nicaragua are greatly exaggerated. Next, the rattlesnake iris may produce a dried seed pod that sounds a bit like a snake’s rattle when shaken by the wind, but that definitely did not evolve as a defense mechanism for the plant (most of which has died back by the time the seed pod dries out). Mistletoe, parasitic to many trees, does not share its nutrients with those trees during the wintertime. The leaves of rosary pea (Abrus precatorius) do not predict meteorological phenomena. Finally, plants do not emit light.
However, there were some real surprises here. I did already know about an acacia in South America with hollow thorns used by ants who feed on nectar from the plant, and in exchage for food and lodging, protect it from insect pests. But I did not realize this was known so long ago. Dixon also reported on a fern, Polypodium nectariferum (now Aglaomorpha nectarifera), that produces nectar which also attracts ants that protect it. In the past couple of decades, scientists have finally established that the fern species producing nectar (there are several) experience decreased herbivory relative to ferns that do not. Score one for Dixon. Then there is the telegraph plant of India, whose leaves move sponaneously above a certain temperature. This one has to be seen to be believed. Why had I never heard of this plant before? Finally, consider Dixon’s suggestion that plants have rudimentary eyes. I include an extended passage, which captures Dixon’s enthusiasm and optimism well, if not quite accurately capturing the state of knowledge at the time:
When the Creator made light, that was not enough; there must be eyes to appreciate this light; so He created animals with eyes, and human beings with eyes, and lastly, although the average person knows it not, plants with eyes, that they too might worship this great work of their Maker.
The number of plant eyes is legion. They are usually tiny cells located in the epidermis of the leaves, and occasionally on the leaf-stalk. Numerous experiments have been made by Dr. Haberlandt which prove conclusively that the eyes of many species of plants are capable of detecting as slight shades of variation in light as are those of man. This is amply proved by the fact that certain plants, like the vetch, pea, or lentil, may be so influenced in their earliest stages of growth that they deliberately turn toward lights.
The scientific world now thoroughly recognises that plants have eyes, and actually see! Not only do they respond to light, but they give every other evidence of the use of their eyes in their work. The eyes of plants are of two distinct kinds; one kind, the less complex, are made by smooth epidermis, and the cells have a plain outer covering. These are very similar to a glass window which allows the sun’s rays to pass through, and fall on the objects within a room, but in no way aids in concentrating the rays of light in definite places. The other kind of eyes are formed of papillose epidermis, whose outer and inner surfaces are so made as to produce plano-convex lenses. These readily concentrate the rays of light over a definite area, and in this respect are very similar to human eyes. In the study of light-producing plant types, as in the understanding of all types and classes of plants, the average botanist has but knocked at the outer door; while before him is a labyrinth of many doors and many barriers. Apparently the secret passage to the centre of this maze, to the heart of the flowers, lies in the attuning of the human nature to the nature of the plants. Science tells us much, but without an absolute communion, a thorough accord and responsive affinity between human soul and plant soul there never can be a thorough understanding of the nature of the plants.
A few things strike me in this passage. First, Dixon demonstrates a fairly keen technical grasp of research in the area of plant light detection. Second, he appears convinced that all scientists are in accord about plants having eyes. Finally, he argues that to really understand plants, scientists need to seek a sort of mystical union with them. Here, scientists would likely be in accord that this is preposterous. There are, however, recently published books well outside the scientific literature by people who claim they have communicated with plants telepathically. Now, in terms of plant eyes, I do think Dixon was a bit premature. However, a 2022 article from New Scientist reports on a controversial study that argues that plants can, in fact, see. So the claim, if not well substantiated, at least still remains in play 107 years later.
A few words about my lovely copy of this book. On the inside of the front covered is scrawled, in at least two different hands with three different writing instruments, three of the book’s previous owners — all of whom cared for it very well indeed.
Unfortunately, tracking down owners online by initials only is very difficult, particularly in the absence of other information, such as a particular city or town. A relatively common last name like Hansen doesn’t help. Still, I am thankful to these three unknowns that the volume I read was practically as elegant as when it was originally printed, apart from the inevitable tanning of age.
