ve-meta title="Plant Humanities Lab" description="Explore the cultural histories of plants and their influence on human societies."

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Featured Resources

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How to Read an Herbarium Specimen

Maura Flannery

This essay provides an approachable overview of herbarium specimens and how they are used.

Featured Plant Narratives

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Indigo: Layers of Paint, History, and Art

Jordan Noelle Smith
Gianna Welty
Hayley Blair

Soybean: The Versatile Miracle Crop

Nina Elkadi

Opium Poppy: A Cursed Beauty

Carol Chang, Heather Rose Craddock, and Alejandro Garay

Quinoa: From Indigenous Crop to International Superfood

Matthew Turetsky

Cercidiphyllum japonicum: The Katsura at Dumbarton Oaks

Abner Aldarondo

Eggplant: Food, Sex, and Poison

Ana Carolina Carmona-Ribeiro, Nathan Cornish, and Sheila Scoville

Maize: Sacred Plant, Global Commodity

Julia Fine

All Plant Narratives

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Agave: A Plant with an Intoxicating History

Ashley Buchanan

Arbor Vitae: In Search of the Tree of Life

Ashley Buchanan

Ayahuasca: Amazonian Plant Lessons

Ashley Thuthao Keng Dam, Diana Heredia-López, Rachael Nelson, and Erin Wrightson

Bananas: Chaos out of Order

Ashley Buchanan

Black-Eyed Pea: Crop, Culture, Class

Sarah Mallory, Emily Kamm, Haley Price, and Christina Hourigan

Boxwood: A Plant That Took Over the Garden World

Anatole Tchikine

The Breadfruit’s Reinvention: Pacific to Caribbean

Elaine Savory

Cacao: Indigenous Network to Global Commodity

Rebecca Friedel

Carolina Rice: An Agricultural Legacy of Enslaved Peoples

Julia Fine

Cassava: From Toxic Tuber to Food Staple

Christina Emery, Rachel Hirsch, and Melinda Susanto

Cinnamomum verum: Discovering “True” Cinnamon

Wouter Klein

Cryptomeria japonica: Climate Change, Cultivation, and Culture

Kira Bre Clingen and Edyth Jostol

Dittany: Women’s Herbs and Reproductive Control

Ashley Buchanan

Dracaena draco: The Mystery of Dragon’s Blood

Thomas C. Anderson
Cati Kalinoski
Lucas Mertehikian

Eggplant: Food, Sex, and Poison

Ana Carolina Carmona-Ribeiro, Nathan Cornish, and Sheila Scoville

Heliconia: Evolution at Work

W. John Kress and Yota Batsaki

Maize: Sacred Plant, Global Commodity

Julia Fine

Mint: The Ubiquity of a Commercial Crop

Victoria Pickering

Opium Poppy: A Cursed Beauty

Carol Chang, Heather Rose Craddock, and Alejandro Garay

Peanut: From Luxury Food to Livestock Feed

Maria Job, Elizabeth Chant, and Katherine Enright

Pelargonium: By Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet?

Daisy Reid, Verónica Matallana Chaves, and Yao Jiang

Peony: Pretty and Powerful

Ashley Buchanan

Sunflower: Knowledge, Myth, and Meaning

Kristan M. Hanson

Soybean: The Versatile Miracle Crop

Nina Elkadi

Quinoa: From Indigenous Crop to International Superfood

Matthew Turetsky

Tamarind: From Shady Refuge to Versatile Foodstuff

Allison Fulton, Amara Santiesteban Serrano, and Jeannette Schollaert

Turmeric: Herb of the Sun

Julia Fine

Venus Flytrap: Queen of the Carnivorous Plants

John R. Schaefer

Watermelon: Stereotypes of Race and Class

Anna Lawrence, Camilo Uribe Botta, and May Wang

Wild Yam: The Rhizome of the Pill

Kira Bre Clingen

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- A collaboration between: 
- [![Dumbarton Oaks](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plant-humanities/media/main/images/do-logo.svg)`:width:150px;height:100%`](https://www.doaks.org/)
- and
- [![JSTOR Labs](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plant-humanities/media/main/images/JSTOR_Labs_logo.jpg)](https://labs.jstor.org)
- with support from
- [![Mellon](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plant-humanities/media/main/images/Mellon_Logomark_Lockup_Black.png)](https://www.mellon.org/)