"David Attenborough meets Lemony Snicket in The Big Bad Book of Botany, Michael Largo's entertaining and enlightening one-of-a-kind compendium of the world's most amazing and bizarre plants, their history, and their lore. The Big, Bad Book of Botany introduces a world of wild, wonderful, and weird plants. Some are so rare, they were once more valuable than gold. Some found in ancient mythology hold magical abilities, including the power to turn a...

We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment, and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the Fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations...

"A forester's fascinating stories, supported by the latest scientific research, reveal the extraordinary world of forests and illustrate how trees communicate and care for each other"--

How do plants make their own food? Which ten plants feed the world? How do some plants trick animals? We wouldn't be here today if it weren't for plants. They keep the world going round in intelligent and surprising ways that aren't always visible to the human eye. In this modern collection, marvel at the beauty of plants and understand the science behind what they can do. Find out about tulips and cacti, trees and sacred plants; and through the absorbing...

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowing together to reveal what...