新概念英语优美短文Unit32：Botany

1、新概念英语优美短文 Unit32 ：Botany32 BotanyBotany, the study of plants, occupies a peculiar1 position in the history of human knowledge. For many thousands of years it was the one field of awareness2 about which humans had anything more than the vaguest of insights. It is impossible to know today just what ou

2、r Stone Age ancestors knew about plants, but form what we can observe of pre-industrial societies that still exist a detailed3 learning of plants and their properties must be extremely ancient. This is logical. Plants are the basis of the food pyramid for all living things even for other plants. The

3、y have always been enormously important to the welfare of people not only for food, but also for clothing, weapons, tools, dyes, medicines, shelter, and a great many other purposes. Tribes living today in the jungles of the Amazon recognize literally4 hundreds of plants and know many properties of e

4、ach. To them, botany, as such, has no name and is probably not even recognized as a special branch of “ knowledge ” at all.Unfortunately, the more industrialized we become the farther away we move from direct contact with plants, and the less distinct our knowledge of botany grows. Yet everyone come

5、s unconsciously on an amazing amount of botanical knowledge, and few people will fail to recognize a rose, an apple, or an orchid5. When our Neolithic6 ancestors, living in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago, discovered that certain grasses could be harvested and their seeds planted for richer y

6、ields the next season the first great step in a new association of plants and humans was taken. Grains were discovered and fromthem flowed the marvel7 of agriculture： cultivated crops.From then on, humans would increasingly take their living from the controlled production of a few plants, rather tha

7、n getting a little here and a little there from many varieties that grew wild- and the accumulated knowledge of tens of thousands of years of experience and intimacy8 with plants in the wild would begin to fade away.植物学植物学，即对植物的研究，在人类知识的历史中占据了特殊的地位。 这是人类几千年来超越模糊的认知而真正有所了解的领域之一。我们今天不可能知道新石器时代的祖先们对植物到

8、底了解多少，但我 们在至今仍存有的前工业化社会观察到：人类对植物及其特性的详细 了解应该是非常古老的。这是理所当然的。植物是其他生物甚至其他植物食物金字塔的基础。 它们对人们的生活至关重要，不但在食物上，而且在衣物、武器、工 具、染料、药物、住所和许很多多其他的用途上。至今仍生活在亚马逊河丛林中 的部落确实能够辨识几百种植物并知道每一种的很多特性。对他们来说，植物学没有专门的名称，甚至可能根本未被认为是一种 专门知识。不幸的是，工业化的水准越高，我们距直接与植物接触就 越远，我们的植物学知识的增加也就越微不足道。不过每个人在不知不 觉中拥有大量的植物学知识，很少有人认不出玫瑰、苹果或兰花。大约

9、一万年前居住在中东的新时代的祖先们发现某些草能被收获，它 们的种子下一季耕种会收获更多时，人类就迈出了人和植物之间的新 关系第一大步。谷子被发现后，农业的奇迹从此诞生：这就是可栽培的谷物。从那时起，人类越来越依赖少数可控制的作物生存，而不再是从众多的野生 种类中这里获取一点，那里获取一点。这样在千万年中对于野生植物的经验和密切联系中积累起 来的知识就开始消失了。1 peculiaradj. 古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的参考例句：He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。2 awarenessn. 意识，觉悟，懂事，明智参考例句：There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍理解到吸烟有害健康。Environmental