“Half a billion animals, now likely to be closer to a billion. Millions of acres, thousands of homes, 33 human lives. I follow these, I feel these, and a voice in the back of my head asks ‘how many trees, how many shrubs? How many plants?’

I can’t help but feel a sense of incomprehension. Why is the impact of fires on plants not making the news; rarely the subject of fundraising campaigns; not being spoken of as anything other than habitat or hazard? Why, when nothing exists without plants, does our society continue to choose not to pay serious attention to their existence?”

Words by Georgina Reid and images by Daniel Shipp, for Issue 71 of Botanica on The Plant Hunter.