The Big, Bad Book of Botany

The Big, Bad Book of Botany

Author: Michael Largo

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2014-08-05

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 006228276X

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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 person to stone. Others have been used by assassins to kill kings, and sorcerers to revive the dead. Here, too, is vegetation with astonishing properties to cure and heal, many of which have long since been lost with the advent of modern medicine. Organized alphabetically, The Big, Bad Book of Botany combines the latest in biological information with bizarre facts about the plant kingdom’s oddest members, including a species that is more poisonous than a cobra and a prehistoric plant that actually “walked.” Largo takes you through the history of vegetables and fruits and their astonishing agricultural evolution. Throughout, he reveals astonishing facts, from where the world’s first tree grew to whether plants are telepathic. Featuring more than 150 photographs and illustrations, The Big, Bad Book of Botany is a fascinating, fun A-to-Z encyclopedia for all ages that will transform the way we look at the natural world.


George Washington Carver: World-Famous Botanist and Agricultural Inventor

George Washington Carver: World-Famous Botanist and Agricultural Inventor

Author: Julia Garstecki

Publisher: ABDO

Published: 2015-08-01

Total Pages: 51

ISBN-13: 1629699373

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This title is a brief, yet informative, biography on George Washington Carver. Readers will learn about Carver's early life, personal life, and all about his contributions to science, farming, and botany. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Core Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.


The Drunken Botanist

The Drunken Botanist

Author: Amy Stewart

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2013-03-19

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 1616201045

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The New York Times-bestselling guide to botany and booze celebrates its 10th anniversary with an updated edition─now including a guide to planting your very own cocktail garden to go with more than fifty drink recipes. This fascinating, go-to text about the plants that make our drinks is the ideal gift book for every cocktail aficionado, the perfect drinks book for every plant-lover. Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley, tequila from agave, rum from sugarcane, bourbon from corn. Thirsty yet? In The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart explores the dizzying array of herbs, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi that humans have, through ingenuity, inspiration, and sheer desperation, contrived to transform into alcohol over the centuries. Of all the extraordinary and obscure plants that have been fermented and distilled, a few are dangerous, some are downright bizarre, and one is as ancient as dinosaurs—but each represents a unique cultural contribution to our global drinking traditions and our history. This charming concoction of biology, chemistry, history, etymology, and mixology—with delightful drawings, tasty cocktail recipes, and fun factoids throughout—will make you the most popular guest at any cocktail party. “A book that makes familiar drinks seem new again . . . Through this horticultural lens, a mixed drink becomes a cornucopia of plants.”—NPR's Morning Edition “Amy Stewart has a way of making gardening seem exciting, even a little dangerous.” —The New York Times


The Illustrated Compendium of Amazing Animal Facts

The Illustrated Compendium of Amazing Animal Facts

Author: Maja Säfström

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2016-03-29

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1607748320

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New York Times bestseller • An artfully playful collection of unexpected and remarkable facts about animals, illustrated by Swedish artist Maja Säfström. Did you know that an octopus has three hearts? Or that ostriches can't walk backward? Or that a group of owls is called a parliament, or that they have three eyelids? Sea otters hold hands in their sleep, bees never sleep, and penguins laugh when they're tickled! This charming compendium contains over 100 pages of fascinating facts about the animal kingdom illustrated with whimsical detail.


The Plant Hunters

The Plant Hunters

Author: Carolyn Fry

Publisher: Andre Deutsch

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780233005164

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Travel across the world and through history to meet the botanical pioneers who changed our landscape. Plant Hunters tells the story of our obsession with all things that grow--both for their beauty and their economic potential--and the creation of botanical gardens to cultivate them. This sumptuous, intriguing volume moves from East to West and back again, introducing the botanists, explorers, and empire builders who gathered plants such as the coconut tree, roses, and numerous fruits and vegetables to bring back home. Showcasing hundreds of breathtaking illustrations and historical documents, it examines the species we now take for granted and the plants that have enriched and impoverished nations.


The Botany of Desire

The Botany of Desire

Author: Michael Pollan

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks

Published: 2002-05-28

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0375760393

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“Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as on our implication in the natural world.” —The New York Times “A wry, informed pastoral.” —The New Yorker The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?


Plant Hunters

Plant Hunters

Author: Carolyn Fry

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 63

ISBN-13: 9781741801125

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They can be more richly-hued than precious stones, more valuable than gold and as alluring as undiscovered lands. This is the story of rare and unusual plants, and the botanist explorers who risked neck and nation in search of them. Open this lushly illustrated and unique volume and encounter a treasure-trove of plant hunting history. It is teeming with over 100 detailed colour illustrations from the Royal Botanic Gardens archive in Kew, plus fascinating facsimile copies of memorabilia such as pages from Linnaeus' 1732 Lapland journal, botanical notebook and sketchbook extracts and specimen drawings. From the Ancient Egyptians to the 'discovery' of Australia, it is a story rich in adventure. This unique book comes in a sturdy outer casing and has many gatefolds throughout to enhance the spectacular images presented.


RHS The Secrets of Great Botanists

RHS The Secrets of Great Botanists

Author: Matthew Biggs

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2018-10-04

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1784725811

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Botanists are the trailblazers who first discovered how plants work and collected from around the world many of the species that we find in our gardens today. This informative and beautiful guide presents the stories of 35 plant collectors and gardening pioneers of the past and present, including Joseph Banks, Asa Gray and Marianne North. Arranged in chronological order, each profile covers one botanist, presenting their life story, discoveries and legacy, while special feature pages reveal their secrets, exploring the qualities that brought them success and showing what ordinary gardeners can learn from them. Illustrated with beautiful period botanical watercolours and vibrant photographs, RHS The Secrets of Great Botanists will provide inspiration and practical guidance for gardeners of all levels, from successful plant cultivation to adding interest to your garden.