This post had me thinking about how the cultural associations we place on color (red, for example) is often influenced not only by aesthetic taste as it is by (economic) scarcity. The mere ubiquity of a certain plant makes it more or less appealing culturally depending on the locale in question.
I didn’t actually write it in this post, but on further reflection I imagine that colors associated with human passage (funerals or weddings, for example) couldn’t, by nature of inclusion, predicate that very rare colors be used. Otherwise, few would be able to participate. Hence, black for funerals (in the West), white in Asia (at least in Korea) and white for weddings in the West, that sort of thing. Colors of ubiquity given to rituals of ubiquity (everybody dies). The rare colors are linked either to rare events (vast economic success) or rare classes (royalty).
Plants. Changing the world one berry at a time.
