THE PLANT HUNTER’S ATLAS: A WORLD TOUR OF BOTANICAL ADVENTURES, CHANCE DISCOVERIES AND STRANGE SPECIMENS
by Ambra Edwards
Greenfinch, £30
ISBN 978-1529410112
A well-conceived book that acts as a thoughtprovoking introduction to a pertinent topic and a timely reminder of our dependency on plants. Reviewer Rory Dusoir is a Kew-trained gardener and writer.
The term ‘plant hunter’ may still evoke tales of derring-do from the colonial era: George Forrest facing down an almost certain death at the hands of bloodthirsty Buddhist monks to grace our gardens with gentians, primulas and rhododendrons; Francis (Frank) Kingdon-Ward, staggering from the aftermath of a huge earthquake, to collect Cornus kousa var. chinensis. Such stories abound and are well told in this book, but its scope is considerably broader.
It is perhaps too easy to forget in the industrialised West our utter reliance on the plant kingdom and that the movement of plants across the globe has tracked and at times dictated the rise of civilisations.
In this book, Ambra Edwards takes a broad view of what constitutes plant hunting and explores some of the many ways in which human endeavour and survival are intertwined with a number of plant species.
Some of the plant introductions described in this book occurred prehistorically – traces of Crocus sativus
(the saffron crocus) have been discovered in cave paintings 50,000 years old – but the author also describes modern plant-hunting endeavours in interesting and unexpected ways.
The section on wheat (Triticum aestivum), for instance, rather than diving into the ancient origins of its use by humans, discusses the groundbreaking research into its breeding carried out by the Soviet agronomist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov in the 20th century and his tragic demise at the hands of Stalin.
There is a huge depth of knowledge behind this book, but the author’s erudition is worn lightly. While accessible to beginners, the book will also be a thought-provoking and refreshing read for those who have read widely around the subject. The format, really a series of short essays, allows the reader to dip into the book without too much commitment, but many readers may find themselves hooked.