Book Review: “Dispersals”

Plants, like people, are border-crossers. In “Dispersals,”Jessica J. Lee traces the histories of particular plants, and their migrations, over her personal and familial story of moving across borders. Through a series of deeply researched, immersive, and heartfelt essays, Lee explores what it means for both plants and people to migrate, and to belong to a place.

An environmental historian and creative writing professor, Lee has resided in the United Kingdom and Germany for much of her adult life. Lee grew up in Canada, among iconic pines and notorious milfoil, and embedded in multiple cultures, foodways, and plant-human relationships from childhood and onward. She writes that growing up, “tea” meant two different things: “golden, floral heat doled out into tiny cups during dim sum” with her Taiwanese mother’s family, and “milky, toffee-hued warmth drunk from a white porcelain mug” with her Welsh father’s. Not only were the teas’ tastes different, but the customs around drinking it were, too. So much so that, as a child, Lee did not consider these two teas as the product of the same plant. She writes she had “never considered the many centuries of that plant’s movement across our world – and how its twin cultural histories were written in my own body.”

This kind of both/and scenario is at the heart of “Dispersals.”Each essay focuses on a particular plant or plant group — such as tea or cherry trees — and explores how historical social, cultural, national, and global realities have influenced how we interact with that plant today. Yet while these botanical histories cross continents, plant groups, and centuries, the scope of Lee’s work stays grounded. Her own relationships with the plants in question become the throughline. She asks, “Can a garden offer a sense of identity?” Lee’s personal reflections make the plants’ migration stories more tangible, as she relates first-hand experience with how they continue to shape more than just ecosystems, affecting intimate human realities such as identity, belonging, and interpersonal relationships.

Amidst the history and analysis, Lee also engages readers in joy and wonder. She marvels at algae, finds comfort in the plants gifted to her by friends, unearths love lessons in her reflections on milfoil and mangoes. Her writing is warm, and she breaks down complicated histories into ones that are not only accessible but thoroughly enjoyable to read.

“Dispersals” is both a deeply necessary text and a deeply pleasurable one. It’s the kind of book that opens up questions you didn’t know to ask and will have you carrying those questions, and Lee’s words, with you into all of your human and plant relationships.

– Madi Whaley

This review was originally published in the spring 2025 issue of The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener. Browse the archives for free content on organic agriculture and sustainable living practices.