To Save Biodiversity and Feed the Future, First Cure 'Plant Blindness'

From our perches in the urban jungle - or even in the leafier parts of suburbia - we often have a tough time naming the last plant we saw. Even if we just ate part of it. This is a symptom of "plant blindness," a term coined two decades ago by researchers who showed that modern civilization is perilously disconnected from the plant kingdom. Our blindness has progressed even further since then, to the point where we hardly recognize the plants that feed us every day.