scrambled thoughts on botanical horror :

in The city and the city by china mieville two cities overlap. people can go down the same street as people from the other city and not see them. it underlines how most of our surroundings are invisible to us and we need to make a particular effort to see them. this links to plant blindness and how most of the time we are completely oblivious to the vegetation surrounding us. sure we see it, but we don't actually see it. and most of all we are unaware of its vitality, all the movements and connections and adaptations that are happening. the thing is that it happens on a different time scale.

time lapses can be eery for that reason, they force you to realize the movements and communications of being living on a completely different scale. they force you to acknowledge the relativity of your point of view.

The man whom the trees loved by algernon blackwood is rooted in this discovery of the trees movements. it's about a man who has a forest in his backgarden and every day to him it seems the trees are getting closer. and so he develops this theory that trees used to roam the earth a long time ago and that they've slowed down but are still in movement. and he ends up completely engulfed in the forest.

there is a fast tree migration happening on the planet, they are in motion, this is due to climate change but also to the ability of beings that we don't really pay attention to. in the United States, the migration is already well underway. a 2010 U.S. Forest Service study found that 70 percent of tree species are already showing tree range migration, with maple, beech and birch potentially gone entirely in the Northeast by 2100.

tdlr : when it comes to the natural world there is a connection between beauty and horror.