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Role of Plants in Improving the Environment¹

ABSTRACT

Foliage, especially foliage that is well watered and rapidly taking in carbon dioxide, improves our environment in tangible ways as well as aesthetically. Properly arranged, foliage can shade us without stilling the breeze and thus balance our energy budgets comfortably. When the productivity of crops per acre is increased, this frees land for parks and wilderness. Plants can also heal scarred land and scavenge pollutants from waste. Finally, we have recently learned that foliage can take in air pollutants, and the estimated cleansing of the air is considerable.

¹ Paper presented Dec. 28–29, 1970, in Chicago, Ill., at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Section "O" Agriculture Symposium on "Agriculture and the Quality of the Environment in the Seventies."

² Chief, Ecology and Climatology, The Connecticut Agr. Exp. Sta., New Haven, Conn. 06504.