Birch by Anna Lewington 2018. Reaktion Books Ltd. “Miserable, naked, hungry”. These three little words are used by the Phytophactor (the ‘nom de blog’ of Illinois State University Professor of Botany Joseph Armstrong) to begin his economic botany classes. Why? That triplet summarises three of the most essential, basic and fundamental services that plants provide […]

The immortal yew by Tony Hall, 2018. Kew Publishing. Is the yew actually immortal? Certainly, trees can live for many thousands of years – e.g. 4,765 years in the case of another gymnosperm Pinus longaeva, but that’s not actually immortal. So, what is the title of Tony Hall’s book – The Immortal Yew – really […]

Weird Plants by Chris Thorogood, 2018. Kew Publishing. There is a view that plants are sufficiently amazing in their own right that they don’t need to be ‘sensationalised’ or over-hyped in order to make them ‘interesting’ or worthy of study. I understand that view – and share it. However, there is no harm in making […]

Sex on the Kitchen Table: The Romance of Plants and your Food by Norman C Ellstrand 2018. University of Chicago Press. What comes to mind at the mention of sex on the kitchen table? * Perhaps many different things – most of which probably can’t be shared in this blog. However, probably what doesn’t readily […]

Land Bridges: Ancient environmental plant migrations, and New World connections by Alan Graham 2018. University of Chicago Press. Why are the Earth’s terrestrial organisms found where they are? This is a simple enough question. However, trying to trace the full story of the present-day distribution of organisms – their biogeography – is tricky; the patterns present nowadays […]

The Book of Seeds: A life-size guide to six hundred species from around the world, Edited by Paul Smith 2018. University of Chicago Press. The book of seeds: A life-size guide to six hundred species from around the world [hereafter referred to as Seeds] edited by Paul Smith is a visual celebration of the enormous […]

Monsters Under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present by Jane Desmarais 2018. Reaktion Books Ltd. Probably, the most obvious interaction between plants and people is the food value of the former: Plants keep us alive. However, when that most basic and essential of needs is satisfied, additional plant-derived calories […]

Marianne North: the Kew Collection by Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, 2018. Kew Publishing. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are rightly famed for their living collection of plants from around the globe (and for the world-renowned architecture of the iconic Palm House and recently-restored Temperate House…). However, one of the unsung gems of Kew is […]

Etrog: How a Chinese fruit became a Jewish symbol by David Moster 2018. Palgrave Pivot. It is fair to say that Etrog: How a Chinese fruit became a Jewish symbol [hereafter referred to as Etrog] by Dr Rabbi David Moster is not a book I would have selected for scrutiny – unprompted. That’s not because […]

Palm by Fred Gray 2018. Reaktion Books Ltd. Fred Gray’s Palm [hereafter referred to as … Palm] is the second title in Reaktion Books’ Botanical series I’ve reviewed. The first was Stephen Harris’ Sunflowers, a super little book that dealt with the huge sunflower family, the Asteraceae. Palm, in contrast, covers the much smaller palm […]

What drives the author to spend time on the piano to re-establish calm or why did the song The Teddy Bears’ Picnic leave an unsettling feeling as a child? These comments are just some of the fascinating thoughts which make this biological history of an ‘edgy relationship’ so personable. Howard Thomas’s recent book The War […]

Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori 2018. Laurence King Publishing Ltd. Stephen Barstow did it with plants, Dan Cruikshank did it with man-made ‘treasures’, and now Jonathan Drori’s done it with trees. Done what? Taken us on a world tour in his wonderful book entitled Around the World in 80 Trees [hereafter […]