so like up until the 1600s, people believed that plants got their mass by eating dirt, because where the fuck else would they get it from. a guy named jan van helmont thought this sounded kind of funky and decided to test it by planting a willow tree sapling, letting it grow in a pot for 5 years, and measuring the soil before and after. lo and behold, at the end of the 5 year experiment the weight of the soil was basically the same. he decided that the mass of the growing willow tree would HAVE to be from water, because what the fuck else could the plant possibly eat, am i right lads???
anyway what im trying to get at is that its actually a really common misconception that plants eat dirt. they do not eat dirt. they get their mass from carbon dioxide in the air that they converted into sugars and starches in photosynthesis. yes, they get nutrients and stuff from the soil, but the bulk of what you see in terms of like, leaves and bark and Non-Water Plant Stuff™ was made from materials converted from carbon dioxide in photosynthesis.
jan van helmont did not know this. jan van helmont self-identified as an alchemist and spent most of his time thinking very hard about how eating things worked while under the assumption that plants apparently got bigger from only water and absolutely nothing else. this, although some sort of mood i can’t pin down– a small worm, a similar hat, if you will– is not a life style i would encourage
This is a weird callout post for a guy who made the most logical deductions he could have given the resources and tools he had at his disposal.
i wrote this trying to find a funnee joke way to correct the ‘plants eat dirt’ misunderstanding but u know what? this is valid. post cancelled jan van helmont didnt deserve this
I mean to be fair the chain of “sounds sensible” is directly inverse to the chain of “actually true”
“plants eat dirt” ok sure, there is physical mass (dirt) and then there is physical mass (plant), most plants can’t survive when taken out of the dirt, this checks out.
“plants eat water” I mean he did weight the dirt so I guess that one’s debunked, and there’s nothing else plants will die without, and I mean they do have sap and so on inside them, we know the water goes into the plant. sure! weird but okay!
“plants eat air” get out of here. you’re just making things up now.
In his defense. They do also eat small amounts of water.