Today, more than ever in human history, fewer and fewer people are able to recognize even a few wild plants. Plant blindness is the inability of many people, even those who study the natural sciences, to identify plants, distinguish them from each other, and name them. It is the inability to see or notice plants in one's own environment. Capitalism disconnects us from nature (and from other human beings too). Under its rule, people who know their environment deeply and truly are becoming an endangered species.
Public funds dedicated to plant science continue to decline, and this discipline is virtually absent from most public school curricula. Plant biology and botany courses are not as lucrative as teaching children computer science. Science education has shifted away from understanding "what nature is" to focusing on instrumental knowledge that can be exploited for profit, completely disconnected from the environments that surround young people. Even for those who study biology, capitalism drives them to focus on either extremely small or extremely large systems - money and resources are devoted to advancing knowledge in molecular biology (e.g., gene editing, protein synthesis, biomanufacturing) or in global ecology (e.g., climate science), while overlooking the "middle part" between the two, including plants and their growth. Today, scientists can create all kinds of personalized medicines using complex genomics, but most can't identify more than a few insects and plants in their own backyard.
Developing curiosity for plants and animals in your own environment, listening to their sounds, colors, and smells, learning their names, and recognizing them, experiencing them and creating memories with them, as well as developing an ability to pay attention to changes in the presence and abundance of certain plants, can be radical acts of resistance. Learning traditional knowledge and caring for medicinal plants are simple actions we can take to repair the damage caused by the capitalist and colonial education we received.