Grass Apes

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Oh, wait, you're listening. Okay.

SPEAKER_3 (0:08)

You are listening to Radiolab.

Molly Webster (0:11)

Radiolab. From WNYC.

Hey, I'm Molly Webster. This is Radiolab. And today's show is inspired by an invitation that I got last spring, which was essentially to tell a story for a park about parks. It was a little more complicated than that. But basically they were like, can you make a story out of the space that we're in? Which happened to be this shady glade. It had a lawn down the middle and trees around the side and rocks and things. So I looked around the space and I was like, okay, maybe there's something to do with mushrooms or I don't know, squirrels. It's New York City. And as I was talking about these scintillating ideas with people, I started having a conversation with a horticulturist. And they said, you know what I think about all the time?

Grass. And I completely ignored them because I thought, what could be interesting about grass?

Then they started talking about how landscapers use grass and that grass is like an instrument that makes sound. And I thought myself, get a little pulled toward grass. Like, maybe there was something there I wasn't seeing. So I wrangled producers, Anisa Vietze and Jo Strogatz, to go out into the parks of New York City and ask people this question. What do you think about grass?

SPEAKER_1 (1:49)

What do I think about grass?

SPEAKER_3 (1:51)

Grass?

SPEAKER_1 (1:52)

You mean this grass?

Molly Webster (1:54)

They got a lot of blank stares.

SPEAKER_3 (1:56)

Do you feel like it's a weird question to ask? That's all right.

Molly Webster (2:00)

But people had a lot to say.

David George Haskell (2:02)

Let me think.

Molly Webster (2:03)

In general, I would probably be thinking about... They talked about...

SPEAKER_3 (2:06)

Rolling round.

David George Haskell (2:07)

Mowing lawn.

SPEAKER_3 (2:08)

My daughter.

Molly Webster (2:08)

Grass memories.

SPEAKER_1 (2:10)

Playing catch.

SPEAKER_3 (2:11)

Girlhood.

Molly Webster (2:12)

Feelings.

SPEAKER_1 (2:13)

Horses.

Molly Webster (2:14)

Chewing it.

SPEAKER_1 (2:15)

Grass stains.

Molly Webster (2:16)

Grudges. Their square teeth. Grind it. Grind it. Grind it up. I like all the trees, the shrubs, flowers. Random associations.

SPEAKER_3 (2:26)

The other type of grass comes to mind as well.

Molly Webster (2:28)

I like the smell. But no one...

SPEAKER_1 (2:31)

Feels great on your feet.

SPEAKER_3 (2:32)

Oh, God.

Molly Webster (2:33)

I love it. told us a story about grass itself.

SPEAKER_1 (2:37)

Grass.

SPEAKER_3 (2:38)

Grass.

SPEAKER_1 (2:38)

Grass.

David George Haskell (2:39)

Grass.

Molly Webster (2:40)

It was like grass was everywhere, but also invisible.

David George Haskell (2:48)

I mean, we even have a term in our culture, the green screen, right? Which is the screen that will be removed, that will be erased for the important stuff to stand out in the foreground. And I think grass for many of us is that green screen.

Molly Webster (3:01)

Honestly, that's how I thought about grass too, as that green screen, until I talked to this guy.

David George Haskell (3:07)

I am David George Haskell. I'm a writer and a biologist.

Molly Webster (3:11)

And David is grass's number one fan.

David George Haskell (3:14)

Because grass is, when you do start to learn about their lives, their transformative effect on the whole planet, and their role in catalyzing human evolution, suddenly they become extraordinarily fascinating.

Molly Webster (3:32)

David says, if we ignore grass, if we look past it, we don't just miss out on the story of grass, but we miss out on one of the most incredible stories of human history.

David George Haskell (3:46)

Indeed, if you had to pick one group of plants that we could count as our co-creators, a group of plants that are vitally important to the appearance of humans on this planet, it would have to be the grasses.

Molly Webster (4:03)

And that story starts, according to David, a very, very, very long time ago.

David George Haskell (4:09)

When you go way back, so if you go 30 million years ago, our ancestors and the ancestors of all the apes were mostly forest-dwelling creatures, eating insects, eating fruit. And back then, there weren't many grasslands around.

Molly Webster (4:30)

But then, things started to change.

David George Haskell (4:33)

These little patches of grasses started to appear in the forest.

Molly Webster (4:38)

The planet was cooling, the polar ice caps were expanding, and places were getting just a little drier.

David George Haskell (4:47)

And then 10, 20 million years ago, those grasslands expanded more and more. So different time scales on different continents. But the overall pattern is a move away from very wooded planet to a planet that's wooded, but has a lot of different grasslands mixed in as well.