A comprehensive, absorbing and entertaining overview of the richly diverse stories of plants and their impact on our everyday lives.
This impressive book is divided into 13 sections containing plant profiles and historic overviews detailing how plants from all over the world affect all aspects of our lives. It covers a diverse range of subjects from plants as heroes (mainly in medicine) to their role in eating and drinking (including the origins of baked beans and the unintended consequences of Prohibition) and in the arts, architecture and decoration (William Morris patterns, for example).
The section Plants on
Parade contains ‘must-visit’ gardens and their histories, including notable botanical gardens such as Kirstenbosch, Kew and Missouri, while recent projects such as Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay and the ecological conservation park Noah’s Ark in South Africa, ensure that the book remains current. It is also delightfully quirky in parts. Topics such as the history of walking and other ‘sticks’, plant-based boys’ names and an imaginary conversation littered with plant-based insults ensure a constant stream of interesting facts and humour alongside poems and personal comments. Lighter moments also reveal the origins of the shape of the croissant and word grenade (so-called because of its pomegranate shape) – enough material for a lifetime of plant-based quizzes. There are also fascinating, sometimes shocking revelations, notably of two unsung heroes in the development of penicillin and the little-known story of white Irish slaves on sugar plantations.
As well as being a thoroughly enjoyable read, the book delivers a more serious message. The section Plants in Peril – which includes a discussion of the impact of the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa, the desertification of the Aral
Sea and the environmental damage caused by palm oil production – is a clarion call for conservation and action. Above all, this book drives home one irrefutable fact: without plants, we would not survive.