The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
by Michael Pollan
from Random House Trade Paperbacks
Working in his garden one day, Michael Pollan hit pay dirt in the form of an idea: do plants, he wondered, use humans as much as we use them? While the question is not entirely original, the way Pollan examines this complex coevolution by looking at the natural world from the perspective of plants is unique. The result is a fascinating and engaging look at the true nature of domestication.
In making his point, Pollan focuses on the relationship between humans and four specific plants: apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes. He uses the history of John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) to illustrate how both the apple's sweetness and its role in the production of alcoholic cider made it appealing to settlers moving west, thus greatly expanding the plant's range. He also explains how human manipulation of the plant has weakened it, so that "modern apples require more pesticide than any other food crop." The tulipomania of 17th-century Holland is a backdrop for his examination of the role the tulip's beauty played in wildly influencing human behavior to both the benefit and detriment of the plant (the markings that made the tulip so attractive to the Dutch were actually caused by a virus). His excellent discussion of the potato combines a history of the plant with a prime example of how biotechnology is changing our relationship to nature. As part of his research, Pollan visited the Monsanto company headquarters and planted some of their NewLeaf brand potatoes in his garden--seeds that had been genetically engineered to produce their own insecticide. Though they worked as advertised, he made some startling discoveries, primarily that the NewLeaf plants themselves are registered as a pesticide by the EPA and that federal law prohibits anyone from reaping more than one crop per seed packet. And in a interesting aside, he explains how a global desire for consistently perfect French fries contributes to both damaging monoculture and the genetic engineering necessary to support it.
Pollan has read widely on the subject and elegantly combines literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific references with engaging anecdotes, giving readers much to ponder while weeding their gardens. --Shawn Carkonen
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?
In this original narrative about man and nature, a bestselling author masterfully links four fundamental human desires--sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control--with the fascinating stories of four plants that embody them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato.
The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques
by Tracy DiSabato-Aust
from Timber Press, Incorporated
With more than 130,000 copies sold since its original publication, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden has proven itself to be one of the most useful tools a gardener can have. Now, in this expanded edition, there's even more to learn from and enjoy. This is the first, and still the most thorough, book to detail essential practices of perennial care such as deadheading, pinching, cutting back, thinning, disbudding, and deadleafing, all of which are thoroughly explained and illustrated. More than 200 new color photographs have been added to this revised edition, showing perennials in various border situations and providing images for each of the entries in the A-to-Z encyclopedia of important perennial species. In addition, there is a new 32-page journal section, in which you can enter details, notes, and observations about the requirements and performance of perennials in your own garden. Thousands of readers have commented that The Well-Tended Perennial Garden is one of the most useful and frequently consulted books in their gardening libraries. This new, expanded edition promises to be an even more effective ally in your quest to create a beautiful, healthy, well-maintained perennial garden.
A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central North America (Peterson Field Guides (R))
from Houghton Mifflin
More than 370 edible wild plants, plus 37 poisonous look-alikes, are described here, with 400 drawings and 78 color photographs showing precisely how to recognize each species. Also included are habitat descriptions, lists of plants by season, and preparation instructions for 22 different food uses.
A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs: Of Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides (R))
by James A. Duke
from Houghton Mifflin
With more than 300 photos, this new edition shows how to identify more than 500 healing plants. Descriptive text includes information on where the plants are found, as well as their known medicinal uses. An index to medical topics, symbols next to plant descriptions, and organization of plants by colors all make this an essential guide to understanding the traditional medicinal uses of the plants around us. At a time when interest in herbs and natural medicine has never been higher, the second edition of this essential guide shows how to identify more than five hundred kinds of healing plants. More than three hundred new color photos illustrate their flowers, leaves, and fruits. The updated descriptive text includes information on where the plants are found as well as their known medicinal uses. An index to medical topics is helpful for quickly locating information on specific ailments, from asthma and headaches to colds and stomachaches. Symbols next to plant descriptions give readers a quick visual alert to plants that are poisonous or may cause allergic reactions. Organized by plant color for fast identification, this guide is an indispensable tool for understanding the traditional medicinal uses of the plants and herbs around us.
The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants
by Samuel Thayer
from Forager's Harvest Press
A practical guide to all aspects of edible wild plants: finding and identifying them, their seasons of harvest, and their methods of collection and preparation. Each plant is discussed in great detail and accompanied by excellent color photographs. Includes an index, illustrated glossary, bibliography, and harvest calendar. The perfect guide for all experience levels.
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees--E: Eastern Region (Eastern)
by NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY
from Knopf
For the untrained observer, it can be quite a challenge to sort out the many trees that make up a stand of older forest in, say, New England or the Ozarks. This well-illustrated guidebook, covering 364 species, comes to the rescue with photographs organized in several ways: by, for example, the shape of the leaf or needle, by the fruit, by the flower or cone, and by autumn coloration. Following one visible characteristic or another, the reader can narrow the range of possibilities, then turn to an informative text that describes a tree's physical characteristics, habitat, and range. Many of the species covered are relatively rare, such as the "stinking cedar" of the Georgia-Florida border; others are locally abundant, such as the paper birch of the boreal forest, used to make ice-cream sticks; still others, such as the smooth sumac, are widespread. The guidebook also covers ornamentals introduced from other continents, such as the Chinese privet and Mahaleb cherry. --Gregory McNamee
Tree peepers everywhere will enjoy these two guides which explore the incredible environment of our country's forests-including seasonal features, habitat, range, and lore. Nearly 700 species of trees are detailed in photographs of leaf shape, bark, flowers, fruit, and fall leaves -- all can be quickly accessed making this the ideal field guide for any time of year.
Note: the Eastern Edition generally covers states east of the Rocky Mountains, while the Western Edition covers the Rocky Mountain range and all the states to the west of it.
The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring
by Richard Preston
from Random House Trade Paperbacks
Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained–the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to thirty feet wide and can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air. Until recently, redwoods were thought to be virtually impossible to ascend, and the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored.
The canopy voyagers are young–just college students when they start their quest–and they share a passion for these trees, persevering in spite of sometimes crushing personal obstacles and failings. They take big risks, they ignore common wisdom (such as the notion that there’s nothing left to discover in North America), and they even make love in hammocks stretched between branches three hundred feet in the air.
The deep redwood canopy is a vertical Eden filled with mosses, lichens, spotted salamanders, hanging gardens of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes, all growing out of massive trunk systems that have fused and formed flying buttresses, sometimes carved into blackened chambers, hollowed out by fire, called “fire caves.” Thick layers of soil sitting on limbs harbor animal and plant life that is unknown to science. Humans move through the deep canopy suspended on ropes, far out of sight of the ground, knowing that the price of a small mistake can be a plunge to one’s death.
Preston’s account of this amazing world, by turns terrifying, moving, and fascinating, is an adventure story told in novelistic detail by a master of nonfiction narrative. The author shares his protagonists’ passion for tall trees, and he mastered the techniques of tall-tree climbing to tell the story in The Wild Trees–the story of the fate of the world’s most splendid forests and of the imperiled biosphere itself.
From the Hardcover edition.
Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification
by Thomas J. Elpel
from HOPS Press, LLC
Looking for a faster, easier, and fun way to identify plants? Botany in a Day teaches you the patterns method of plant identification, so that you can discover the wonderful world of plants around you, wherever you go.
Instead of trying to identify plants one-at-a-time, Botany in a Day give you a way to learn them by the hundreds, based on the principle that related plants have similar patterns for indentification, and they often have similar uses.
The one-day tutorial included in the text teaches you seven key patterns to recognize more than 45,000 species of plants worldwide. Master these seven patterns and you will be ready to use the included reference guide--Thomas J. Elpel's Herbal Field Guide to Plant Families of North America. Here you will find the patterns for indentification and the patterns of uses for the majority of plants across the continent.
Botany in a Day is used as a guide by thousands of individuals, plus herbal schools and universities across North America.
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers--E: Eastern Region - Revised Edition (National Audubon Society Field Guide)
by NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY
from Knopf
This compact guidebook, produced to the National Audubon Society's high standards of quality, gives full descriptions of more than 650 species found east of the Rocky Mountains, along with notes on several hundred more. The eminently sensible organization relies on first-impression visible characteristics rather than the elaborate keys of some older texts--a format well suited to beginning wildflower enthusiasts. If, for instance, you wanted to identify a long-stemmed, tubular red flower that you found in a grove of loblolly pines, you would first turn to the color plates, find the section devoted to red flowers, find a likely match from the 30-odd choices, and then turn to the text to see that the flower's habitat and range made a good fit, ruling out those species that do not. After a few minutes' looking, you'll have identified a trumpet honeysuckle. Well written and richly illustrated, this peerless guide makes the ideal companion for an expedition to eastern wood or prairie. --Gregory McNamee
EASTERN REGION
This fully revised edition brings a new level of beauty, accuracy, and usefulness to the field guide that wildflower enthusiasts have relied upon for more than 20 years.
More than 940 all-new, full-color images show the wildflowers of western North America close-up and in their natural habitats. The guide has been completely revised to make identification in the field easier than ever. Images are grouped by flower color and shape and keyed to clear, concise descriptions that reflect current taxonomy.
Designing with Succulents
by Debra Lee Baldwin
from Timber Press, Incorporated
Succulent plants offer dazzling possibilities for garden design and require only minimal maintenance to remain lush and alluring year round. Featuring the work of more than 50 professional garden designers and creative homeowners, this complete design compendium is as practical as it is inspirational. Lavishly illustrated with over 300 photographs, it gives design and cultivation basics for paths, borders, slopes, and containers; hundreds of succulent plant recommendations; and descriptions of 90 easy-care, drought-tolerant companion plants. Beginners and experienced designers, landscapers, and collectors alike will find what they need to visualize, create, and nurture the three-dimensional work of art that is the succulent garden.
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