About
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Every culture, religion, and region has plants that affect it in some way. This can take the form of deep historic ties that evoke feelings of nostalgia and love of home, feelings of sadness and longing derived from a plant that is no longer as numerous as it once was, or symbolism from the plant's physical form that create religious or cultural significance. As a large city that has seen many waves of immigration and cultural diffusion Boston houses flora originating from all over the world, each species with a special meaning to one group and each with its own story to tell.
Natural Change
Just like people and animals, plants migrate. This is often through natural means both on the individual scale, such as natural seed dispersal, and the generational scale such as Earth's changing climate, geology, and topography causing populations to die in places where they used to thrive and thrive in places they couldn't survive previously.
Human-Induced Change
Humans also cause plants to move, both intentionally and unintentionally. People may bring plants to new places because they know how to raise them and want a stable source of food, because they use it in their daily activities or cultural rituals, or just because they want a comforting reminder of home in a new and mysterious land. All of these represent how plants can have implicit associations to certain people, but not to others. One person's familiar is another's alien.
Finding Meaning
As a result of the way that different groups of people interact with different plants, they figure into each of their cultures in various ways. It may be that a specific plant projects power and wealth to one people because it is rare and sought-after by the rich, while the same plant represents poverty and backwardness to another because it grows spontaneously in decrepit lots. To one group, it may represent life and to another death. As designers, we need to be aware of the cultural connotations that these plants hold. This may make plant selections more difficult, but we also have an exciting opportunity to use those connotations to our advantage. We can create spaces that appeal to users' culturally-based emotions and feelings about the chosen plants. This guide is intended to give insight into some of the Boston area's diverse plants, many of which come from places with vastly different cultures, and explain what significance they hold for these groups.
