Around the World in 80 Plants

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Some have a troubling past, while others have ignited human creativity or enabled whole civilizations to flourish. She has worked with international fashion houses, museums and Historic Royal Palaces and The Palace of Versailles. Spanish and Italian cheesemakers steep whole flowering artichoke heads in water to extract a enzyme that can coagulate milk to be used instead of rennet in cheese.

Plants are fascinating - we get the ones we can eat, the ones that would rather eat us, some that help us "have a good time" (whether legal wherever you live or not), ones we keep as decoration, those that we make clothing out of, some grant shelter / shade, others can heal, all of them produce the oxygen we so need to live. Yes, the factual science portion is in here, complete with Latin names and etymology and words like "stamen" and "inflorescence" and even the occasional "secretions. Around the World in 80 Plants makes me want to find out yet more about the plants that are so often overlooked as a green background, or seen merely as scenery to frame the animals, yet are vital for supporting life on Earth. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.She is delighted with it and says it is both a beautiful and a very informative addition to her library of gardening books. With the perfect combination of history, biology and geography; I now feel totally at ease spewing brand new facts about plants I seen all my live but never thought to understand. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.

For the Aztec civilization, medical treatment combined the use of plants with magic and religion; marigolds were part of the decoration and offerings at religious festivals, and deities were decorated with marigold garlands. One can only marvel at the mental gymnastics of the men and women who deploy extraordinary wealth and lobbying power to present tobacco companies as model corporate citizens.It is a credit to his skill and dedication that every fact-filled sentence is rich in information about each chosen plant, be it ethnobotanical, economic, folklore, myth, history, religion, culinary or etymology - not a word is wasted. It's fair to say that Jonathan Drori, who has spent his life involved with plants and is now a member of the Council of Ambassadors of WWF and The Woodland Trust, has a real place in his hear for the simple and overlooked. Jonathan Drori CBE is a Trustee of The Eden Project and Cambridge Science Centre, an Ambassador for the WWF, and was for nine years a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and The Woodland Trust. Most of his choices are two pages - a few are four and those have more illustrations possibly likely due to the diversity (squashes, pumpkins and gourds) or the history (cocoa). I remember times when arrogant humans claimed animals couldn't feel like we do or when vegetarians assured everyone else that eating fish is alright since they aren't "real" animals much like vegans still claim that eating insects is alright for the same reason.

Like a curious but discerning alchemist, the author has distilled a wealth of information concerning the examples chosen, which are an eclectic mix of both well-known and lesser-known plants. And this would not be a complete review without a mention of the lavish and fabulous illustrations provided by Lucille Clerc. Dopo aver letto Il giro del mondo in 80 alberi non potevo certo lasciarmi sfuggire questo nuovo saggio di Jonathan Drori.From the unfurling leaves of the silver tree fern to the colours and impossible shapes of some unique and strange-looking orchids, these drawings add yet another layer of delight. With its fascinating blend of the cultural, historic and scientific, Jonathan Drori's AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 TREES led readers on a global tour telling the stories of people and plants. She graduated with a DSAA in Visual Communication from Olivier de Serres in Paris, and set up her studio after graduating from Central Saint Martins in London with an MA in Communication Design.