Elle Maruska

“We in effect challenge the unwanted prodigy to produce forms that slip through our control systems. It does not take much to beat us. One seed in a thousand may germinate later than the last hoeing, pass through the sieve intended to exclude it, show a mysterious immunity to weedkillers. The following year there are five . . .”
― Richard Mabey, Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants

“The elastic powers of plantain extended beyond first aid, though. It was also a divination herb, stretching sight into the future, and was used especially at that time when the membrane between the human and supernatural worlds was at its thinnest. On Midsummer Eve in Berwickshire the flowering stems were employed by young women in a charm which would predict whether they would fall in love.”
― Richard Mabey, Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants

“Instead, the Snake Detection Theory, as Isbell refers to it, posits that as our ancestors split from the lemurs and other early primates, they were forced to adapt to a change in the predators they knew all too well. In Asia or Africa around 60 million years ago, the snakes became more venomous (though scientists aren’t quite sure why then and there). The Viperidae and Elapidae were born.”
― Christie Wilcox, Venomous: How Earth's Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry

“Heck’s attempted rewilding serves to reinforce a very important fact: Europeans are now the mind over their land. What they desire, the land will become. And if their desires are toxic and dangerous, then that will manifest itself in nature. Europeans cannot escape responsibility for shaping their environment; as even withdrawal from management will have profound consequences.”
― Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History