Should any trees reincarnated as The Tree Book be pleased or offended?

The Science of Plants: Inside their secret world by Dorling Kindersley, 2022. Dorling Kindersley, published in association with Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. I had a great sense of déjà vu (Stephanie Pappas) when looking through The Science of Plants by Dorling Kindersley [which book is here appraised]. We’ve been here before And that sense of […]

The Seed Detective: Uncovering the secret histories of remarkable vegetables by Adam Alexander, 2022. Chelsea Green Publishing UK. What do you think of when seed banks are mentioned? Perhaps Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank in the Sussex countryside of the UK, or the Global Seed Vault at Svalbard inside the Arctic Circle come to mind. What […]

Nigel Chaffey reviews a book about Trees, but is there agreement about what a Tree is?

“Plants continually excite and surprise me” says Michael Perry. but how does Nigel Chaffey feel about Perry's new book Hortus Curious?

A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but where do these names come from? Nigel Chaffey reviews a book that explores the stories of some of the people behind the plant names.

"It’s easy to see how The Age of Seeds could be an award-winning book."

Should African Violets have a conservation tariff to help protect their natural habitats? A new book asks some serious questions about the plants with which we share our homes.

Author Keith Seifert is a charming guide as he introduces us to a fungal world many of us are largely unaware of.

Planting Clues should not only appeal to the general reader, but will also serve well as a textbook for an undergraduate course on forensic botany.

The Magic of Mushrooms: Fungi in folklore, superstition and traditional medicine, Sandra Lawrence, 2022. Welbeck, in partnership with RBG Kew. How much do you know about fungi? It doesn’t really matter how much you know because I bet you’ll know an awful lot more about this mysterious kingdom after reading The Magic of Mushrooms by […]

The Green Planet by Leisa Stewart–Sharpe and Kim Smith, 2022. Puffin Books (an imprint of the Penguin Random House group of companies). Not so long ago I appraised The Green Planet by Simon Barnes. Although I had positive things to say about that book; I had a major issue with the absence of any sources […]