The Flowers Opened the Way

Bibliographic Data

ID3914287
AuthorsAdriana Craciun (Boston University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume17
Issue1
Pages129-153
Publication date2025-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Humanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2201-1919 • E-ISSN: 2201-1919
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/22011919-11543439
OpenAlexW4409013818
LanguageEN
References cited52

In an Arctic world dominated by ice and enlivened by the dynamic movements of animals, plants are easily overlooked, yet their colorful presence has attracted and arrested the movements of a wide range of travelers. This essay redirects attention to Arctic plants and their unique temporal and spatial scales, communities, and adaptations, which give them surprising roles in shaping Arctic places and human experiences. Looking at the works of nineteenth- and twentieth-century voyagers, writers, artists, and botanists from Norway, Britain, and the United States, the article shows how flowering plants in particular shaped the travels and imaginations of outsiders who may have been drawn by sublime icescapes or the myths of European exploration but were transformed by the arresting powers of minute plants. While these travelers often came to the Arctic as part of larger colonial efforts, their encounters with Arctic plants rarely reinscribed mastery. Instead Arctic plants often inspired euphoria, excess, and a confusion of categories, challenging self-possession and mastery while initiating understanding into Indigenous knowledge of these plants as part of Arctic communities. The article concludes by connecting these earlier plant investigations with the recently established Greenland Arboretum in Narsarsuaq and the Kujataa UNESCO World Heritage Site nearby commemorating Greenland's (relatively) short-lived agricultural history. The creation of these sites devoted to the "assisted migration" of particular plants into the South Greenland landscape evokes the earlier fascination with the agency of Arctic plants in new ways and reveals the complex cultural politics of current "Arctic greening

Political science · Botany and Plant Ecology Studies · Bryophyte Studies and Records · History · Peatlands and Wetlands Ecology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access