A great collection of the lives of important botanists throughout time, this book is part biography and part vignette.

The definitive guide to botanical Latin Unlock the secrets of botanical Latin with this beautifully illustrated encyclopedia. The Gardener's Botanical contains definitions of more than 5,000 plant names—from abbreviatus ("shortened") to zonatus ("with bands")—along with more than 350 color illustrations. Scientific plant names are an invaluable tool for those who understand them. Formed from Greek and, more commonly, from Latin root words, not only do they make it possible for gardeners and botanists to communicate, they also contain a wealth of hidden information. The Gardener's Botanical is the key to unlocking these secrets. This guide contains a breathtaking array of botanical names in alphabetical order. Each word is listed with a pronunciation guide, definition, example plant, and, where appropriate, etymology. Also included in this illuminating guide are special features on important plant genera, fact boxes, essays focusing on the history and importance of Latin names and botanical illustrations, and an index of common names with more than 2,000 popular plants, cross-referenced with their binomial name in Latin.

*SELECTED AS THE WATERSTONES SCOTTISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022* 'Compelling, fascinating . . . A cracking good read' Val McDermid 'An evocative, enjoyable portrait of 1820s Edinburgh' Sunday Times 'Lush, seductive' Daily Mail 'Completely enchanting' Scotsman 'A beautiful tale of scandal and intrigue' Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora *** Could one rare plant hold the key to a thousand riches? It's the summer of 1822 and Edinburgh is abuzz with rumours of King George IV's impending visit. In botanical circles, however, a different kind of excitement has gripped the city. In the newly-installed Botanic Garden, the Agave Americana plant looks set to flower - an event that only occurs once every few decades. When newly widowed Elizabeth arrives in Edinburgh to live with her late husband's aunt Clementina, she's determined to put her unhappy past in London behind her. As she settles into her new home, she becomes fascinated by the beautiful Botanic Garden which borders the grand house and offers her services as an artist to record the rare plant's impending bloom. In this pursuit, she meets Belle Brodie, a vivacious young woman with a passion for botany and the lucrative, dark art of perfume creation. Belle is determined to keep both her real identity and the reason for her interest the Garden secret from her new friend. But as Elizabeth and Belle are about to discover, secrets don't last long in this Enlightenment city . . . And when they are revealed, they can carry the greatest of consequences . . . *** 'Dazzling, original, full of wonderful characters' Katie Fforde 'An absolute treat for fans of historical fiction and rich storytelling' Red Magzine 'Lively and generous-hearted, with an array of utterly engaging characters, this enchanting novel reads like a warm tonic for the soul' Mary Paulson-Ellis 'As rare and lush as the Agave flower itself, The Fair Botanists is a richly realised, transportive delight' Rachel Rhys 'Beautiful . . . Every sentence is a gift. If you love The Doll Factory or The Binding, you'll love this' Miranda Dickinson 'Delightfully original, sensuous historical fiction, led by a charge of female characters as captivating and complex as the brightest of botanical flowers' Cari Thomas

Plant Families is an easy-to-use, beautifully illustrated guide to the more than seventy core plant families every horticulturist, gardener, or budding botanist needs to know. It introduces the basics of plant genealogy and teaches readers how to identify and understand the different structures of flowers, trees, herbs, shrubs, and bulbs. It then walks through each family, explaining its origins and range and describing characteristics such as size, flowers, and seeds. Each family is accompanied by full-color botanical illustrations and diagrams. "Uses For" boxes planted throughout the book provide practical gardening tips related to each family. By understanding how botanists create these groupings, we can become more apt at spotting the unique characteristics of a plant and identifying it faster and more accurately. Understanding plant families also helps us to make sense of- and better appreciate- the enormous biological diversity of the plant kingdom.

Reporting for the Los Angeles Times on the international blind tasting competition held annually in Amsterdam known as the Cannabis Cup, novelist Mark Haskell Smith sampled a variety of marijuana that was unlike anything he’d experienced. It wasn’t anything like typical stoner weed, in fact it didn’t get you stoned. This cannabis possessed an ephemeral quality known to aficionados as “dankness.” Armed with a State of California Medical Marijuana recommendation, he begins a journey into the international underground where super-high-grade marijuana is developed and tracks down the rag-tag community of underground botanists, outlaw farmers, and renegade strain hunters who pursue excellence and diversity in marijuana, defying the law to find new flavors, tastes, and effects. This unrelenting pursuit of dankness climaxes at the Cannabis Cup, which Haskell Smith vividly portrays as the Super Bowl/Mardi Gras of the world's largest cash crop.

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

“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?

Nanise', A Navajo Herbal, co-authored by Barbara Bayless Lacy and Vernon O. Mayes, details 100 plants that are found on the Navajo Reservation, providing the reader with the Navajo name for each plant as well as ways the Navajos used them in everyday life, whether for ceremonial, medicinal or household purposes - complete with illustrations. The 100 plants are some of the most common reservation flora of over 1,500 species of wild, vascular plants, including ferns, horsetails, conifers and flowering species and were selected by the Navajo Health Authority, Ethnobotany Project staff, and approved by the Navajo Medicine Men's Association.

In 1871, Marianne North, a brilliant artist with a keen interest in botany, set-forth to travel the world on a quest to paint indigenous plants in their natural habitat. Encouraged by her friend Charles Darwin, North travelled by boat, train, mule, foot and palanquin to every continent except Antarctica. She circled the globe twice over fifteen years and accumulated an extensive and valuable collection of more than eight hundred paintings, which today comprise the esteemed Marianne North Gallery at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, London. North--high-spirited, indefatigable, and brave--also kept detailed journals, which were posthumously published in three volumes in the late 1800s. Abundant Beauty collects the most engaging writings from those journals in one edition, including rich descriptions of botanica and delightful accounts of local people and customs from her sometimes dangerous travels. Abundant Beauty is a fascinating and informative read for botanists, gardeners, historians, and armchair travellers.