Dear Dahlia, 

I am enamored by your fierce, full, dignified being. Will you allow me to be an advocate for your story? 

 You are more than just a colorful, poised, noble flower. Your composed manner, precise, symmetric petals, and tall slender, yet strong stem mirrors the intricate, meticulous tubers which grow underground. 

I have passionately been immersing myself in trying to understand through science how your inulin works for yourself, rather than for our own humanistic benefits. It is said that your tubers are your main food source, rich in starch (inulin), your brain, and your original being before sprouting above Earth’s surface. Humankind takes your plant food for ourselves to be converted into fructose, which cures human diabetes. Astec humans used you for themselves to treat epilepsy. Your beautiful, soft, brightly colored petals are plucked away by humans to increase our own appetite.

 I understand from my own research that your tubers consist mainly of carbohydrates from your inulin in the form of small colorless crystals, which is your food. When we take away your inulin, we starve you and affect your development.  Do you feel underappreciated by us for using you for our own medicinal purposes? 

Something I thought that was very interesting was that you like seaweed and manure in your soil. Is this maybe why you like Kalmar and growing next to the sea? Kalmar has a lot of ocean and farm land. Does this suit you? I also understand that your roots purify our soil. Thank you for keeping the soil clean for us. 

By learning about you more, I wanted to take an ecological and scientific approach when addressing creating a map from your viewpoint. Since you do not have eyes, ears, or a mouth, I had to think back to your roots… literally. Your tubers underground are all your senses, food producers, energy and filtering system. With this in mind, I decided to take inspiration from a micrograph image that is magnified seven times and an image of your vascular bundles magnified by twenty times. I realized that the micrograph from you was your own map already. By using what you already have, I was able to show your perspective quite clearly in my map. The circular walls surrounding the clear, colorless inulin are the roads of my map. The map’s key highlights all your amazing nutrients such as Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, Calcium, Copper, Zinc, and Iodine. I cut out holes in my map to represent the clear inulin that you have, and colored small cellular bundles to show where fertilizer is held where your other nutrients are held. By doing this, human viewers can see from your perspective where you hold all your properties. Rather than seeing the end result of what we make of you for medicinal purposes. I hope my viewers are able to see the original bare structure of your body before we manipulate your nutrients for our own good. 

 For me, it has been very difficult to see from your perspective, especially an underground perspective. This experience has taken me out of my humanistic views. Whilst creating this project, I kept going back to quote Aristotle once said, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” For you Dahlia, the way your tubers naturally combine individual parts adds a complex quality to you as a whole. Each of your individual nutrients combined produce a flower, but when I look passed your flower and see your cells and what they are made of, the result is fascinating.

We, as humans should see you more as a companion, rather than a resource for medicinal purposes. Whilst doing school work, I read a work by a woman who shared love for another species and told the story of mushrooms, her name is Anna Tsing. Tsing expresses in her work, “ Matsutake here is not just a delicious food; it is also a symbol, and a participant in a world of ecological wellbeing.” In this small passage, Tsing describes the Matsutake mushroom as being more than just a food source, but instead as a partner amongst all beings in our ecological world. If humans could see in this perspective when we see you, the Dahlia, would you feel more appreciated?  

By practicing companionship with our surrounding species, sustainability would be much more efficient and friendly. I was able to experience this on a smaller scale by getting to know you and learn about you. 

Throughout this project of mapping your individual parts in a whole cell I experimented with theories, my own beliefs and values as well as trying to see your own, I learned what the worldview is of you from humans, and I tried to see your worldview on us. When reflecting on these steps I realized I was in some small way achieving sustainable development. 

So, I wanted to say thankyou for giving me this experience and letting me analyze the deepest parts of your natural makeup. I hope my map of your viewpoint is a worthy contribution to your fascinating, beautiful, and complex design by nature. 

I look forward to hearing your answers to the questions I have asked, but I also understand if you'd like to keep them underground in your tubers… 

Thank you, 

Bijou Burns 

Nsabimana, C., Jiang, B. (2011). The chemical composition of some garden Dahlia tubers. British Food Journal. 113 (9): 1081-1093. In Moldovan, Ioana, et al. “Dahlia an Unforgettable Flower: A New Perspective for Therapeutic Medicine .” Hop and Medicinal Plants , 2017, pp. 56–68.

Aristotle . “8.6.” [=1045a]. Metaphysics 

Tsing, Anna. “Arts of Inclusion, or, How to Love a Mushroom.” Australian Humanities Review, vol. 50, 2011, doi:10.22459/ahr.50.2011.01.