by Stephen Humphrey
MCGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS
2023/$39.95/256 pp.
For many Albertans, pollen is little more than the yellow haze in the air over the boreal forest during the spring and early summer, the bane of those with allergies. But in Paths of Pollen Stephen Humphrey reveals a fascinating world of plant competition and adaptation in which “pollen, itself, is more than just a passive traveller. Chemically, physically and even genetically, plants and pollen assert their own sort of agency.” He details the many ways in which plants have adapted to attract and sustain the most adept pollinators—not honeybees but hummingbirds, bats, night-flying moths, solitary bees and bumblebees. He describes for us tricky orchids and cadaver plants, beardtongue flowers that switch their affinity from bee pollinators to bird pollinators, and the importance of “floral fidelity” to successful, sustained pollination.
As we come to understand the intimate links between plants and their specific pollinators, we recognize Humphrey’s underlying emphasis that the more profoundly connected a pollinator is to a particular plant species, the more likely it is to decline as that plant species is compromised. In a world looking down the barrel of vastly escalated climate change caused by human action, Humphrey is clear about the devastating impact on pollinators of temperature shifts we humans may consider to be minimal. It’s no coincidence that a book focused on the tiniest of particles ends up casting a broad environmental shadow. Through Humphrey’s careful connections, we become aware of the many ecological links that lie just out of our sight by virtue of their minuscule size (and our lack of attention to detail).
Humphrey identifies himself as a “citizen naturalist” in the book, but although he claims this less formal title, Paths of Pollen is meticulously researched and supported by both academic and lived experience. In an increasingly science-averse world, Humphrey’s call to other citizen scientists functions on two levels: to support the gathering of data to help specialists in their work, and to empower us to take a deeper stake in the more-than-human world. “If untouched by new knowledge,” he says, “[the mind] repeats familiar patterns, which become fixed over time. It takes the jolt of discovery to shake a mind out of its rut. The process can be unsettling, embarrassing, even painful. But that’s how we learn.” Ultimately, he challenges conservationist Aldo Leopold’s words, “We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love or otherwise have faith in.” Perhaps we do indeed relate best to that which we can see, but learning how to see is the trick. Paths of Pollen helps us fine-tune both awareness and sight.
Jenna Butler is the author of Revery: A Year of Bees.
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