Bizarre Botany: An A-Z Adventure Through the Plant Kingdom - Hardcover

Harrison, Christina; Gardiner, Lauren

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1842466143 ISBN 13: 9781842466148

Publisher: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2017

Synopsis

The world of plants is endlessly fascinating and full of surprises, even for an experienced horticulturalist or gardener. This book celebrates that bounty through a tour of its stranger precincts, a beautifully illustrated A-to-Z compendium of fascinating facts, quirky stories, and unusual adaptations.

Flipping through this elegant, approachable book, you’ll encounter oddities like the breathing knees of the swamp cypress or the illicit whiskey distilleries once fueled by juniper wood. Do you know what a vegetable sheep is, or what plants the Egyptians used in embalming? That poison dart frogs raise their young in tank bromeliads in the upper reaches of the forest canopy? Or that oak galls can be used as a source of ink? You’ll learn all that and more before you get to Z in this lovely gift book.

Full of fascinating floral facts, Bizarre Botany will appeal to plant lovers and gardeners old and young, experienced or just starting out—and its bounty of oddities are sure to make you a hit at your next garden party.

About this title

About the Author

Christina Harrison is the editor of Kew magazine and the author of Kew’s Big Trees and Flowers of Love and coauthor of Treasured Trees and The Botanical Treasury. Lauren Gardiner is a research fellow at Kew and coauthor of The Botanical Treasury
 

Review

“Plants are awe-inspiring. Everyday we are surrounded by these fascinating, endlessly useful organisms, yet somehow manage to constantly overlook them. This book aims to change all that, opening our eyes to how amazing they truly are. Guaranteed to make a plant geek out of anyone.“ (James Wong, ethnobotanist, author, and host of Grow Your Own Drugs)

“But it’s rather more intriguing to know that there are two begonias named after Star Wars characters—B. darthvaderiana and B. amidalae—and an orchid named after Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch called Stelis oscargrouchii. There’s even a genus of ferns named after the singer Lady Gaga. These are some of the facts in Bizarre Botany, an A to Z of unusual information about plants from Alcoholic Agave (whose sap is fermented to make tequila) to Zoophilous (plants that are pollinated by animals).” (Daily Mail)

“This is a book that will delight not only plant lovers and naturalists, but quizzers, and collectors of wonderous new words (zoophilous, herbivory, pyroclastic, ultramaphic)—or indeed anyone over the age of ten with an enquiring mind.” (Gardens Illustrated)

Edition details

• Publisher: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1842466143
• ISBN 13: 9781842466148
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 178
• Illustrator: Mills Livi