OPEN A BOOK,OPEN THE WORLD
「就像我筆下的植物，我也是一邊遷移，一邊說故事。」
一粒種子從花園的圍牆逃逸而出……
海藻在汪洋中漂流……
一棵樹種植於不斷變化的邊界上……
灌木被人從它的培養環境和土地上連根拔起……
當這些植物離開原生的家園，在其他地方扎根時，會發生什麼事？
人們往往認為植物是靜態的，而「生根」不僅會用來形容植物，有時也描述歸屬於某個地方的某些人。然而，植物可能會意外離開原生地、隨著壓艙水飄洋過海；抑或被遠赴異國的採集者刻意蒐羅來改革母國糧農生產；又或者，在全球化世界中，離鄉背井的移民帶上植物，便將小小一部分的原鄉一起攜往他方。
加拿大籍、臺英混血的背景讓本書作者李潔珂對「遷移」、「流徙」、「原生」、「外來」等概念格外敏銳。在《離散的植物》寫作期間，她偶然因故被迫在兩個國家、三座城市、四所不同住宅間輾轉遷徙。切身經歷加上過去曾受正規環境史、景觀美學的訓練，讓她善於觀察人文世界折射於自然環境所呈顯的風景，也習慣反思人類建構的社會與野生環境之間的交互影響。在本書中，她挖掘由帝國探險家挾帶至另一塊大陸商業栽植的茶葉「遷移」史；也探究何以東亞餐桌上常見的大豆，引入北美後在文化意象與日常飲食中，始終屈居下位。另外，池塘中的藻類入侵種、傳播範圍遠達極圈的苔蘚、人人欲除之後快的雜草……在在引發作者追問：這些植物離開原生的家園在其他地方扎根時，會發生什麼事？
本書熔回憶錄、歷史和自然科學於一爐，探索了植物和人類世界的羈絆，而作者也從植物和人類的遷徙中發現到可呼應、對比之處。全書十四篇文章所查考的植物，在一定程度上都被視為「不在其位」，透過它們，讀者能以新的角度思考何謂「家」、「歸屬」與「包容」的真諦。
A seed slips beyond a garden wall. A seaweed drifts through an ocean. A tree is planted on a shifting border. A shrub is uprooted from its culture and its land. What happens when these plants leave their original homes and put down roots elsewhere?
Born in Canada to a Taiwanese mother and a Welsh father, steeped in both literary and scientific traditions, Jessica J. Lee is a perfectly placed observer of our world in motion.
In this vibrant book of linked essays she explores the entanglements of the plant and human worlds, and the echoes and counterpoints she detects in the migration of plants and people - and the language we use to describe them.
Each of the plants considered in this collection are somehow perceived as being "out of place"- whether weeds, samples collected through imperial science, or crops introduced and transformed by our hand.
Combining memoir, history, and scientific research in precise and poetic prose, Jessica J. Lee meditates on the question of how both plants and people come to belong - or not - as they border cross, and reveals how all our futures are more entwined than we might imagine.
