came With colonialism "exotic" plants to Europe. Today, orchids and Avocados are an indispensable part of Germany.

Now, there are over 30,000 Orchid hybrid species, which can form on Windows photo: Katheryn Brown/EyeEm

at the end of the 18th century. Century exotic "plants in Europe Mode". First of all, could the Rich only, especially in the colonies in possession of the English, this fun to make. However, they had plants – at least in the cities – little bit of luck with your room and the garden, because everything was full of "harmful dust and Soot deposits". The outrageously expensive plants fade.

in 1829, thought the doctor, and plant lovers Nathaniel Ward on a solution: He built a glass-walled "room greenhouse": the "Wardian Case", such as cultural studies, Mareike Vennen in her book "Aquarium" writes; it is assumed that the sealed plant glass precursor of the glass Fish tank.

at the Time, the plants were brought by ship to Europe for a week took and what survived most of the plants. "Sailors are not a gardener," says the Zurich-based landscape architect Hansjörg Gadient describes the Problem. As it is also built aboard small glass houses and gardeners with Transport, sent, fell, slowly the prices.

One of the first plants to Germany from its colonies "home to the Reich" was violet in the usambara. Supposedly, the Africa brought travelers Graf von Pückler, the first to Berlin. The African violet is not Violet is used, it is only so, because its flowers violets are colored. It belongs to rartigen the lip of the flower, of which a number of ornamental plants were.

The African violet is easy to grow, and the wild still exist in the usambara mountains of present-day Tanzania, which was once German East Africa, where the Germans in 1902, in the usambara and the biological Institute, Amani founded, it was soon also the point of contact for German missionaries in the mountains. From there, the flower came again and again, as a Souvenir of the scientists to Germany.

The physician Robert Koch researched there against the "tropical fever", which is transmitted by the malaria mosquito. To fight them, let cook trees and bushes on the banks of the river cases, and even wanted to concentrate the indigenous population in Camps.

These invented the "Maji-Maji", a magical water used by the anti-colonial fighters in the "Maji-Maji uprising". The inventor of this "medicine", which should protect against the balls of the White, by made the warrior invisible, Tanzania today is a monument. They call him the "prophet Kinjiketile," he had a lot of "Messengers", who distributed the "war medicine" over all the tribes – and so, in the fight against the Germans for the first time, United.

The suppression of their anti-colonial uprising was the responsibility of the "Reich Commissioner for the Kilimanjaro region", Dr. Carl Peters, a mass murderer, not to be hanging in Germany for nothing, "Peters" called. He also graced repeated the Amani Institute.

In Berlin's "African quarter" named an Avenue after him. As in 1983, the Tanzanian Student at the TU Mnyaka Sururu Mboro made about the "colonial politician" Carl Peters advice and against the street naming, protested, changed it gracious to the note under the road sign: The Peter Avenue, was no longer in the wedding ", the CDU politician, Hans Peters" dedicated to. Now you should see "Maji-Maji-Allee".

On the orchids you can tell a very different story. They were beginning to plant the most expensive rooms. And still today, there are tropical orchids, wild live, for the rich lovers to pay more, "than a luxury car costs", as it says in the guide "orchids" by the breeder Jörn Pinske. Because their tiny seeds are covered with no endosperm, they need a fungus, which supplies the necessary nutrients. They managed to replicate. In the meantime, there is already whole "Orchid industries", the supermarkets and DIY stores supply.

Meanwhile, there are entire Orchid industries, the supermarkets and DIY stores supply

The orchids manufacturers to take a certain part of the Orchid stem and turn it into thousands of cells from which plants are grown. New varieties we breed, by the Pollen of a species are transferred to the stigma of another. Until today, there are about 30000 of such hybrid types. "They are always cheaper, but it has not a joy to them," say the growers. Of the regardless, the Orchid is one of the plants with the highest worldwide sales.

There is an illusory flower, i.e., she needs wild, insects for pollination, not attracting them with nectar, but by making yourself in shape, color, and smell related to them. Some South American orchids, which cooperate with the "glory bees", not to offer to the males, even a scent that applies directly to you. You take him, according to the biologist Charles White, "in handsome bottles on the hind legs" and fly it to your "mating places" where you are "presentation of the organization's flights". "The plant's fragrance is to attract the females."

conversely, the local Orchid "Ophrys insectifera has wasps fly" (Orchid) not only the shape and colors of a potential partner for the grave of males, but the female Sex attractant. In his copulation, the males of two pollen packets get to try to the forehead glued. In part, the deception goes so far that the bees, the males of the genus Andrena prefer the corresponding Ophrys flowers even on a female.

The philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari have Become derived from these covenants is the requirement: "the Orchid and the wasp!" Because it occurs again and again that orchids dredge lovers of wild orchids – not the lush in the tropics, but the local nondescript – the Rhön biosphere reserve to protect them (there are 40 species), the orchids were employed.

Here will be from the Laurel plant Avocado the speech, because his story is a paleontological. It is a Central American tree that bears pear-shaped berry-like fruits, which have an unusually large core. There are now 400 cultivars in almost all warm countries, and large areas of cultivation, the cause is already a water problem, because we eat so much Avocado fruits. to get

"these fruits, you would need a male and female avocado trees, the flowers of which open in each case against the same. But a single evergreen sapling from the avocado, the core is a prettier sight than a houseplant,“ says utopia.de. "Take the avocado core and drill three toothpicks halfway into the side of the core. Hanging him with the pointed side up in a glass jar with water that the lower end of the avocado core juts out into the water.“

fruits have a similar purpose as the nectar in the flowers: "they serve as a lure and as a reward for all of those animals, which are nourished by them, and the seeds from the mother plant to continue", it says in the book of the Italian biologist Stefano Mancuso, "The incredible journey of the Plant", to be released in the near future.

Over the Avocabaum (Persea americana) is it to have lived that time immemorial in America giant mammals that have been extinct some 13,000 years ago, all of people, including the Mastodon. This elephant-like animal was able to eat the avocado fruit, wherein the core happened the digestive tract undamaged.

were to become extinct As the mastodons, saw it for the Avocados bad, but then the Jaguar, the fat flesh also agreed that he broke with his teeth from the seeds without damaging them. according to Mancuso

"The Jaguar, of course, could only be a transitional solution. As a transport partner, he was not perfect, but good enough to survive. Nevertheless, the distribution area of the Avocado shrank inexorably and it seemed already as if to share in the end the fate of the mastodons, as suddenly the man appeared on the scene and the Plant is discovered.“

Now, the tree has spread, but "with the people involved means to make a Pact with the devil, you pay sooner or later with his soul." And the soul of the fruit, the seeds, core, you wegzüchtet her now, he interferes with the Cook.

"Deprived of a Plant, however, the opportunity to produce their own seeds, demoted you from living beings to mere means of production in the hands of a food industry." And for the breeding of a new Houseplant you can't use your fruit too.