"Mas de que te serve saber botânica?"

Abstract

In many Western societies, botany is thought to be a wearisome and outdated branch of biology. Unlike animals, plants awaken little or no interest. This tendency has been interpreted as a condition inherent to humans and was named "plant blindness," with negative consequences to teaching and research in biology. In this article, we examine the origin, features and possible reasons for plant blindness, and suggest some solutions to break the spiral of silence and overcome this limitation. Among the suggested measures are the introduction of interdisciplinary teaching activities in the field and in the laboratory, references to plants with relevant roles in history and economics, improvement of the level of teachers, mentoring of youth and children in plant cultivation, wider use of information on plants by the media, and stronger participation of scientific societies and teachers in the work of overcoming plant blindness in Brazil.