ABSTRACT
The science of plant cognition is transforming the stories we tell about wild plants and thus about wilderness. This chapter develops the idea of ‘botanical wilderness narratives’ as works of fiction and non-fiction that foreground plants as intelligent agents. The wilderness writings of Henry David Thoreau reveal empathetic affinity for botanical intelligence, as mediated through the senses of smell and taste. More recently, the non-fiction of David George Haskell and fiction of Richard Powers demonstrate the increasing influence of the vegetal cognition framework on narratives of flora and wilderness. While broadening the range of stories that can be told, the idea of the cognitive plant also has the potential to expand our understanding of narratives already enshrined in wilderness discourse. After considering the writings of Thoreau, Haskell and Powers, the chapter pivots towards Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, the most floristically diverse reserve in New South Wales, Australia. In the 1800s, European-Australian explorer-botanists John Oxley and Joseph Maiden travelled through a landscape suffused with the gesticulations of gorge-dwelling plants. Moving away from prevailing notions of utilitarianism, monumentalism, aestheticism and managerialism, the intelligent wilderness becomes a locus of percipient entities and a sentient terrain to be ethically regarded.
