A child can recognise 1000 brands but fewer than 10 native plants

“The average Western adult can recognise over 1000 brand names or logos, but fewer than ten local, indigenous plants”

I heard this quotation recently which made me ask “Why is this so?” and “How many local, indigenous plants could I name?”  Quite a challenge! In part due to changing location, I don’t live where I grew up, so nature is different around here.  But, partly because I grew up in the town, full of plants, yes, indigenous not likely….  So whilst for a moment I felt smug knowing the names of more than ten plants the feeling quickly turned to questioning…  Which plants were indigenous? Grass, Buttercups, Oak trees, Nettles, Sycamore, Chickweed… Cherry blossom, Privet?  Which of those amazing plants I saw in people’s gardens were courtesy of industrial money and plant hunters such as Fortune, Forrest Banks rather than courtesy of the locality where dairy farming had abounded.

In fact as I thought about it, local indigenous seemed easier to name here living near to the Cotswold escarpment, Beech, bluebells, orchids,  hawkweed, no maybe not.

So how could we change our knowledge?

When should we introduce our children to naming indigenous plants or plants of any sort?

For me it happened alongside singing nursery rhymes.  If I go by a Mulberry tree I break out into “here we go round the Mulberry bush, the mulberry bush…..” a silver birch “land of the silver birch, home of the beaver.. ,” which turned into Silver Birch, Betula pendula, Beech, Fagus sylvatica.

Then, after a friends’ little boy had eaten a couple of Yew berries fortunately with no lasting ill effects just an unfortable night in hospital! always saying “YUCK, Yew” when walking by a Yew, Taxus baccata tree.

These have been simple and intuitive ways for me to introduce plant names but I am sure you have other ways.  I would love to hear about them.