Award-winning poet and novelist Helen Humphreys returns to her series of nature meditations in this gorgeously written and illustrated book that takes a deep look at the forgotten world of herbariums and the people who amassed collections of plant specimens in the 19th and 20th centuries. From Emily Dickinson's and Henry David Thoreau's collections, to the amateur naturalists, whose names are forgotten, but whose collections still grace our world,...

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,

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An introduction to trees throughout the seasons. Suggests activities.

Find out why leaves are important for plants.

In ancient Ireland there were 365 different parts to the body, and a different plant to cure each part. So the wild plants of Ireland are bound up in our culture and folklore from the earliest times. To carry a four-leaved shamrock brings luck in gambling, while putting nine ivy leaves under her pillow means a girl will dream of her future husband. Here plants are described in seasonal order, a perspective dating back to our ancestors. Different aspects...

Volume 1 of the basic study of American grasses, both indigenous and escapes, cultivated and wild. Over 1400 species. Full descriptions, information. Total in set: over 1100 maps, illustrations.

Plants evolved seeds to hack time. Thanks to seeds they can cast their genes forward into the future, enabling species to endure across seasons, years, and occasionally millennia. When a 2000-year-old extinct date palm seed was discovered, no one expected it to still be alive. But it sprouted a healthy young date palm. That seeds produced millennia ago could still be viable today suggests seeds are capable of extreme lifespans. Yet many seeds, including...

Volume 2 of the basic study of American grasses, both indigenous and escapes, cultivated and wild. Over 1400 species. Full descriptions, information. Total in set: over 1100 maps, illustrations.

Pit lakes are defined as areas, which are the aftermath of open cast mining. Over the years, these lakes mature to become self-sustaining wetlands. But, pitlakes of India are under great threat as mafias and local goons try and fill them up and start illegal construction over it. These kinds of activities have led to the destruction of flora and fauna of the pitlakes. They have been home to hundreds of plants and animals. This book intends to record...