Review of Katherine Willis, Good Nature: Why Seeing, Smelling, Hearing, and Touching Plants is Good for Our Health, New York: Pegasus Books, 2024

by Paul Prill (2020)

Katherine Willis is a professor of biodiversity at Oxford University, and, for five years, she was director of science at the Royal Botanical Gardens (Kew) in London. She has also received the Michael Faraday Medal for the public communication of Science. This brief biography tells us two things about this book. It is heavily research based, and it is delightful reading throughout. She noticed, as do we, that she was happy walking through the gardens, attending to her senses as she encountered plants for themselves objects to study. And so, she set herself the task of trying to understand why that happens.

Since the 1990s, researchers have been using more sophisticated tests to determine the physical and mental health benefits of plants for humans. Blood analyses, MRI scans, EEGs used to determine whether or not plants actually can reduce inflammation in our respiratory and digestive systems or reduce mental fatigue, slow the progress of dementia, or lift depression. In chapter after chapter, citing study after study, Willis offers us proof that plants give us much more than food and colorful palettes.

She not only explores fully our basic sensory experiences of plants, she also takes us into the world of microbes as well as the more macroscopic creation of interior “sense-scapes” so that our dwellings and offices more closely mimic the experiences of being outdoors.

“Don’t wear gloves when you garden (thorns excepted!).” “Take walks, even short walks, in the woods.” “Put a spider plant on your work desk.” “Have a beautiful plant growing outside a window where you can see it from your workspace.” “Have a vial of cedar essential oil open in your home or office.” Gardeners have always understood this advice, but we are often dismissed as purveyors of snake oil. Katherine Willis provides the needed documentation to prove we are not just perpetuating old wives’ tales.

In the last chapter entitled “Prescribing Nature,” Willis suggests that, given the accumulating evidence of nature’s ability to improve our health in the areas of reducing harm, restoring capacities, and building capacities, we need more encouragement from doctors to get outside. We do not yet have enough evidence to throw away all of our pills, but we have enough to encourage more people to take two doses of nature and call us in the morning!