Various specimens from John Muir's collection, photographed by Stephen J. Joseph, from "Nature's Beloved Son: Rediscovering John Muir's Botanical Legacy" by Bonnie J. Gisel and Stephen J. Joseph (Heyday Books, 2009). See the slideshow below on this page for more images from the book.
The great 19th-century naturalist, mountaineer and conservationist John Muir is known for his treks in the high Sierra of California, his near-mystical passion for wilderness, his determination to save Yosemite and create America’s national parks.
Bonnie Gisel wants you to remember Muir as a botanist. Wherever he walked — and he seemed to walk everywhere, from the Midwest to Florida, across California and Alaska — he collected plants.
She’s tracked his collection across the country, had it captured in remarkable photographs, and brought it back to the light of day. It’s a dazzling, sobering, window on our botanical world, then and now.
This hour, On Point: On the trail of John Muir’s botanical travels.
You can join the conversation. It’s spring — the season of plants is coming. Do you know what that would have looked like in your neighborhood 150 years ago? Can you picture the botany of John Muir’s day?
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
Bonnie Gisel, co-author with photographer Stephen Joseph of “Nature’s Beloved Son: Rediscovering John Muir’s Botanical Legacy.” She has studied and written about John Muir for 20 years and is the curator of Le Conte Memorial Lodge, the headquarters for the Sierrra Club in Yosemite National Park. She performed pathbreaking research to assemble the collection of Muir’s botanical specimens that had before been scattered across the country.
Dean Taylor, researcher at the Jepson Herbarium at the University of California, Berkeley. He’s an expert on the endangered plants of California and has written popular field guides to the flowering plants of Yosemite and the Sierras. He’s walked in Muir’s footsteps and has seen, firsthand, the damage climage change is doing to the plants John Muir catalogued.
Use the navigation controls below to view a slideshow of images from the book “Nature’s Beloved Son” by Bonnie Gisel and Stephen Joseph. For the " target="_blank">plant names and descriptions, click here to browse the images on Flickr.
Tags: books, ecology, environment
Thank you for doing this show.
As a graduate student in botany, I am fully aware that we are becoming increasingly specialized in our science. Gone are the days of the wandering naturalist; the John Muir and Gilbert White-esque collecting, writing and careful noting of their explorations of the natural world.
While we can try to attain this (higher, more personal) connection to the natural world, we are, I fear, more impersonal, more quantitative, and necessarily so in most cases. I fear that we as scientists, trying to feign non-bias, are lacking this wonderful, celebratory spirit. The spirit that celebrates our connection to and care for the nature that we love to study.
I hope that the new field of ecosystem science can bring us closer to this realization of a world where the whole is more than the parts; that is, the many individual processes and functions of animals and plants create beauty, patterns and services to us in society.
Thank you.
Posted by Lynn, on March 31st, 2009 at 9:52 AMmy coment is simple, I’m a florist in lynnfield ma, i have been i the industry for 25 years i have seen flower veriaty’s come and go is this a natural thing or does it have to do with supply and demand. I know i’ts a very wide question but it would take to long to list all the types of flowers. Just a thought…P.S. I love the program it makes my mind wander. I like that. Thanks for your time Joe Botticelli
Posted by Joseph Botticelli, on March 31st, 2009 at 10:45 AMA number of the species spoken of on this program exist
Posted by Steve Wisth, on March 31st, 2009 at 10:52 AMin the Midwest. Needless to say when I find/photograph them I share their location with very few people.
Having photographed botanical specimens, I appreciate the amazing amount of work that Stephen Joseph put into this project.
Posted by Janet, on March 31st, 2009 at 10:57 AMThank you so much for this discussion today. How different would we be if we all believed — as Muir did — that each thing was created for itself. I translate that into being the best, strongest, heartiest, most beautiful me I can be….not a copy of any other fellow plant in this landscape!
Posted by Sue Leroux, on March 31st, 2009 at 10:59 AMThank you for this excellent program. Content most appreciated, as well as very much needed today. Previous commenter makes a point which I feel is timely in our evolution. Our science has brought us great amounts of information that we needed for our understanding of the natural ecosystem, and now we must turn our attention to the fact that all species of life have equal importance in the natural cycles of existence, in our interconnectedness in the matrix of life energy. We are only beginning to understand our place in the universe. Our relationship to co-existing life forms within our natural environment requires acceptance and understanding, respect and consideration, rather than intentional “conquering”, elimination, or overcoming. Each area on the planet provides habitat to the species originating there, which are exquisitely adapted to that habitat; we are the only species which has striven to force the habitat to conform to our desires rather than to adapt ourselves to that which supports our lives.
Posted by Nori Lane Bishop, on March 31st, 2009 at 11:24 AMJohn Muir was one of those who early on recognized this position of interconnectedness and the benefits derived, and spent his life creating a body of work and influence that has benefitted all of us coming after him, giving us the encouragement to proceed in our lives without destroying our life-support system, our environment, but most of all, to experience it’s humbling and uplifting grace for ourselves.
As a parent, middle school science teacher, and outdoor enthusiast, I delighted in this program. I have had the pleasure of spending only one night at Yosemite, but I have walked many places in California and still recall a mysterious altar-like tree trunk, burnished black by fire, on one walk, and a brilliant cloak of California poppies decorating a meadow on another.
As our population becomes increasingly more urban-based, (which can be very earth-friendly in the long run), we must find ways to ensure that children still enjoy daily explorations in natural settings and occasional feasts in the wilderness which Muir encouraged us to explore. If we do not connect with these scenes, we will not protect them — or ourselves.
A coda: I live in a suburban neighborhood 1/2 hour from New Haven, CT, but near a lovely state forest. We feed birds, see wild turkeys, and occasionally see a fox. Just as this program was ending, I spotted a first in our yard — a bobcat! That was a little taste of wilderness all by itself.
Congratulations to On Point and NPR for running this program, and to Gisel and her collaborator for their extensive research.
B. Richter
Posted by Beth Richter, on March 31st, 2009 at 11:46 AMI found your program intreging and as a lay naturalist, I appreciate the journey and dedication of John Muir. A person rarely leaves anything of importance after their short term of life. As an educator, I find it difficult to determine the effect of my teachings or counseling other than when they were given they seemed important.
Posted by Don Miller, on March 31st, 2009 at 7:21 PMI was recently asked what was the one place in the world I had been that most inspired me. And the instant answer was the John Muir Trail From Kings canyon to Mt. Whitney.
Posted by Steve Trank, on March 31st, 2009 at 7:23 PMIt was the most life changing experience I have ever had.
Wow.
“The force that through the green fuze drives the flower, drives my green age.”
bw
Posted by Bill W., on March 31st, 2009 at 7:41 PMI was a botany student at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, in 1963. Our botany professor, Dr. Markle, led us on a field trip through the South to Florida during Spring Break. It brought back wonderful memories when I heard Bonnie Gisel tell of John Muir’s walk from Indianapolis through the South to Florida.
Posted by Nick Dorosheff, on March 31st, 2009 at 9:31 PMHaving followed John Muir’s 1,000 Mile Walk and done a herbarium and plant press myself, it was a delight to see Gisel’s book with its amazing photographs. I did see the flowers and grasses Muir saw, but also saw invasive plants like Kudzu which, to his good fortune, he did not see.
Posted by James B. Hunt, on April 1st, 2009 at 3:11 PMFirst of all, thank you for not making me log in to make a comment. I appreciate the convenience and you wouldn’t be reading this if I had to do that.
That said, the piece on John Muir was just excellent, and it was followed up last night by a great piece on Bonnie and Clyde. Someone over there at On Point has their thinking cap on, and I hope they keep it on.
Posted by Paul Carpenter, on April 2nd, 2009 at 11:30 AMHey … Dr Blockbuster from Dunbar (John Muir’s birthplace) was pleased to listen to this excellent podcast
I’m running @_JohnMuir on Twitter and you can see a picture of John Muir’s monument in Dunbar as the background. Come join us!
I’ll publicize this great podcast!
Watch out Martinez, California – advance warning of a party of Dunbar students arriving in Martinez in June 2010 on a Muir expedition. :smiles:
@DrBlockbuster
Posted by Dr Blockbuster, on April 4th, 2009 at 8:07 AMNetworks & Forums guru
Dunbar
Scotland
As a self taught mushroom collector / consumer I walk the woods of cape ann seeking my prize I have to slow down to focus on all that is around me and in doing so I find what I seek And also in the process I see so many plants mostly small things that if I didn’t stop to look would go unnoticed. It amazes Me the endless beauty of all plants big and small. I agree that plants live for themselves but they all come together like notes to sing earth’s song. Some like trees and fungi can’t live on there own they need that symbiotic relationship to live. So they might live for themselves but they also live for many others. I also think that plants and mushrooms are like people some are givers ,some are takers, others are parasitic, some are beautiful on the outside but maybe deadly within and vise versa so much can be learned from nature we just need to look. So I say go see the world up close or from afar smell and taste the fruits of this earth love all that it has to offer and leave places as we find them so others may find them.
Posted by Michael Larkin, on April 4th, 2009 at 5:09 PMI have a profound sense of admiration for John Muir. In reading Frederick Turners book Rediscovering America, the biography of John Muir, I was taken on a close look at this man and in so doing, I rediscovered myself. When at the point of exhaustion Muir lays down on the forest floorbed and sees a tiny flower poking its petals through the layers of leaf and detritous, he was encouraged to go on. Hurray!! I Love Mr. Muir.
Posted by randi k barbour, on April 5th, 2009 at 1:23 PMThe images from “Nature’s Beloved Son” were amazing!
Posted by Lori E. Mazzola, on April 6th, 2009 at 11:17 AMThank you for sharing them with me!