Nature Sketchbook. What Would We Do Without Plants?

Nature artists! Those flowering plants we have been learning to sketch are what we depend upon for food. When the good Lord gave the seed-bearing and green plants for food, ** humans were well-provided for. Our farms, fields, and gardens grow mostly angiosperms. Thanks to Wikipedia, here’s a list of our food choices, and also food choices for livestock:

Poaceae, or grass family (providing grains), rice, maize, wheat, barley, rye, oats, pearl   millet, sugar cane, sorghum.

Fabaceae, or legume family, which includes beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, soybeans, peanuts for humans; alfalfa and clover for livestock.

Solanaceae, or nightshade family, potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers, among others.

Cucurbitaceae, or gourd family, which includes pumpkins and melons.

Brassicaceae, or mustard plant family, which includes rapeseed and cabbage species Brassica oleracea.

Apiaceae, or parsley family.

Common Fruits:

Rutaceae, or rue family, including oranges, lemons, grapefruits, etc.

Rosaceae, or rose family, including apples, pears, cherries, apricots, plums, etc.

In some parts of the world, certain single species are important, for example the coconut (Cocos nucifera) on Pacific atolls, and the olive (Olea europaea) in the Mediterranean region.

Flowering plants also provide economic resources such as wood, paper, fiber (cotton, flax, and hemp, among others). They provide medicines (digitalis, camphor), and have many other uses including decorative and landscaping plants.

Non-flowering plants (gymnosperms) are equally important to human use. These are the coniferous trees (Pinales) for timber and paper production. Artists, we will turn our attention to the conifers at another sketching session.

♥ While you work on your outdoor sketches, take a moment to gratefully acknowledge these hardworking plants that keep us alive. We are surrounded by a living garden of abundance.

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^{**NIV GEN 1:29} Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.