I propose that, over the course of the long eighteenth century (1700-1830), plants were reconsidered, appreciated anew for the vital powers they share with us. In a wide range of cultural productions--from scientific texts to poems to travel books, even to wallpaper--moments of human-plant intimacy are captured, and the agency, mobility, and liveliness of the plant come to the fore. To effect this rethinking of vegetal life in the British Enlightenment, I will draw on insights and perspectives from the nascent field of Critical Plant Studies (CPS), which calls for new understandings of plant being and of our dependency on plant life, calls made all the more urgent by the climate crisis.
