Human uses of plants
Edible plants have long been a source of nutrition for humans, and the reliable provision of food through agriculture and horticulture is the basis of civilization since the Neolithic Revolution.
In art, mythology, religion, literature and film, plants play important roles, symbolising themes such as fertility, growth, purity, and rebirth.
In architecture and the decorative arts, plants provide many themes, such as Islamic arabesques and the acanthus forms carved on to classical Corinthian order column capitals.
Cultural universals in all human societies include expressive forms like art, music, dance, ritual, religion, and technologies like tool usage, cooking, shelter, and clothing.
The major staples include cereals such as rice and wheat, starchy roots and tubers such as cassava and potato, and legumes such as peas and beans.
[4] Plants grown as industrial crops are the source of a wide range of products used in manufacturing, sometimes so intensively as to risk harm to the environment.
[5] Nonfood products include essential oils, natural dyes, pigments, waxes, resins, tannins, alkaloids, amber and cork.
Products derived from plants include soaps, shampoos, perfumes, cosmetics, paint, varnish, turpentine, rubber, latex, lubricants, linoleum, plastics, inks, and gums.
[6][7] The fossil fuels coal, petroleum and natural gas are derived from the remains of aquatic organisms including phytoplankton in geological time.
[9] Cloth is often made from cotton, flax, ramie or synthetic fibres such as rayon and acetate derived from plant cellulose.
Modern medicines derived from plants include aspirin, taxol, morphine, quinine, reserpine, colchicine, digitalis and vincristine.
[42] J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth makes use of many named kinds of plant, including the healing herb athelas[43] the yellow star-flower elanor which grows in special places such as Cerin Amroth in Lothlórien,[44] and the tall mallorn tree[45] of the elves.
[53] Plants figure prominently in mythology and religion, where they symbolise themes such as fertility, growth, immortality and rebirth, and may be more or less magical.
[64] The mandrake is hallucinogenic and its roots can resemble a human figure, so it has long been used in magic, and is still used in contemporary paganism such as Wicca and Odinism.
The lotus is one of the Ashtamangala (eight auspicious signs) shared between Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism, representing the primordial purity of body, speech, and mind, floating above the muddy waters of attachment and desire.
