After I finished reading the first couple of chapters of Richard Mabey’s ‘Weeds: How Vagabond Plants Gatecrashed Civilisation and Changed the Way We Think About Nature’ I turned to Pete and said “When I grow up I want to be Richard Mabey.” It’s not that I hunger after the life of a naturalist – I don’t. I don’t have the patience or the artistic ability to find and record plants in their habitats. And it’s not as though I am a Mabey groupie – I do have a copy of Food for Free, but I have never sat down to read through one of his books before.

But in Weeds Mabey has shown himself to be a true Renaissance Man. As he explores weeds and their history with man (for without man, there are no weeds), he effortlessly combines history and myth with science, art, literature and architecture. And he does it using language that makes no attempt to dumb itself down to the lowest common denominator, and yet to the literate reader is as enthralling and readable as mass-market paperbacks are to the masses. It is those traits that I would emulate, if I could.

The book itself is divided into twelve chapters, each given the common name of a plant that is considered to be a weed. But the chapters aren’t mere discussions of the virtues (or not) of that plant, they have wide-ranging themes and touch on many plants and their stories. They are all tied together by the main story arc of how our perceptions of weeds have changed through the ages, and scattered with entertaining anecdotes. In ‘Adonis’, for example, we discover that Edward Salisbury raised more than 20 species of plant from the debris he found in his trouser turn-ups!

‘Knotgrass’ looks at the way weeds and theology have become entwined through the ages and how that has coloured our view of them. It’s all caught up with the development of agriculture (before which ‘weeds’ as a concept did not exist) and the simultaneous advent of a life of toil and strife, before which we lived free and easy lives as hunter gatherers and weren’t cursed by pestilent weeds.

‘Self-heal’ discusses the different ways that medicinal plants have been selected since history began, including the Doctrine of Signatures that professes that a plant’s medicinal qualities (and the ailments they cure) can be seen in their form by an experienced practitioner. There’s an echo of these ideas later on in ‘Burdock’ when Mabey revisits Ruskin’s attempt to classify plant species on the basis of their aesthetic qualities, at a time when our understanding of botany and evolution was beginning to give us a real understanding of why plants grow in the way the do.

I got bogged down in ‘Love-in-idleness’, which is about the presence of plants in literature. Shakespeare I can cope with, but as I have no appreciation of poetry the latter half of the chapter was heavy going. I skipped it and moved on to ‘Gallant Soldier’, which is fascinating because it talks about the ways in which weeds are transported around the world, and also because it mentions locations in Oxford which which I am more than familiar.

It talks about a plant known as Oxford ragwort, which is not a native species but started it’s life in Britain in the Oxford Botanic Garden. It is used to rocky spots and mountains, and found its way into the walls and then out onto the buildings beyond. from there it spread through the city and eventually found its way to the railway station and hitched a ride to London and Swindon :)

It also seems likely that the Ivy-Leaved Toadflax that arrived in my garden last year (and which has apparently been called ‘Oxford weed’ in the past) travelled from its native Italy in the packing material for marble sculptures in the 17th century.

Whilst reading this I was thinking about Plantlife’s new report on the next generation plant invaders which, they worry, could affect our parks and open spaces in the future. And then the book mentions the arrival of Pirri-Pirri Burr, which Plantlife has chosen as one of their poster plants for the campaign.

I don’t have the space here to get into a discussion about non-native plants and conservation, but Mabey makes it clear that the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. We have been transporting plants around the globe – on purpose and unwittingly – for as long as we have been on it. Merely being virtuous and refusing to plant these species in our gardens isn’t going to solve the problem.

Mabey rounds out the book with a glossary of plant names, a bibliography and an index and his hope that whilst our concept of weeds is an indication of our separation from the natural world, their habit of refusing to accept or acknowledge boundaries could show us the route back to a life more in tune with nature. If you have even a passing interest in plants and their impact on our lives, this is an essential read.

Disclosure: cmp.ly/1