Green Inheritance: Saving the Plants of the World - Softcover

Huxley, Anthony; Smith, Katy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520243595 ISBN 13: 9780520243590

Publisher: University of California Press, 2006

Synopsis

Humans are entirely dependent on plants: we eat them, build with them, burn them for power, breathe the air they maintain, cure our ills with them. Yet, we are destroying this fundamental resource at a terrifying rate. This extensively revised and updated edition of Anthony Huxley’s magnificent global overview of our plant kingdom portrays the beauty, diversity, and history of wild and cultivated plants, highlighting their profound importance in our lives. With its beautiful color photographs, drawings, charts, diagrams, and superb text, Green Inheritance describes the role of plants in the global environment and across cultures; shows how plants are used for food, fuel, and medicine; considers their role for us as objects of beauty in gardens; and much more. Encyclopedic in scope and full of intriguing stories about many individual plants, this remarkable book emphasizes just how essential our green inheritance is to the future of humanity.

Huxley explores many topics that reflect a deepening concern about the threats to our plant heritage such as the slender genetic base of the world’s staple crops and the dwindling last locations of wild resources with unexplored potential. This new edition expands its coverage of current issues such as invasive plants, hotspots of plant diversity, herbal medicines, genetically modified crops, and sustainable timber harvesting. Writing with wisdom and vision, Huxley has created an invaluable resource for learning about the world’s plant life that underscores the importance and urgency of plant conservation.

About this title

About the Author

The late Anthony Huxley was author of Plant and Planet (1974) and thirty others books and field guides on flowers and horticulture. He was an editor at Amateur Gardening.

Reviews

The late horticulturist Huxley wrote more than 30 books about plants, including an earlier survey of the world's plants. This new, invaluable, and more urgent incarnation addresses the fact that critical plant species are dying out at an alarming rate, a situation that continues to worsen with the passing of time. Beautifully produced and illustrated, Green Inheritance draws attention to the problems facing the planet at large as well as the ways each individual can conserve natural resources. Overall, the educational and wide-ranging text promotes an appreciation for the wondrous properties of plant life, from basic sustenance and curative powers to the ecology of insects and flowers. The elegance and descriptive power of the text combines with compelling visuals to show the interconnectedness of deserts, oceans, and polar ice caps. Readers will come away with an enhanced view of the natural world and heightened interest in assessing the current movement toward genetic engineering. Alice Joyce
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Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520243595
• ISBN 13: 9780520243590
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192