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Books > Sport & Leisure > Natural history, country life & pets > Plant life: general
Nineteenth-century English nature was a place of experimentation,
exoticism, and transgression, as site and emblem of the global
exchanges of the British Empire. Popular attitudes toward the
transplantation of exotic species-botanical and human-to Victorian
greenhouses and cities found anxious expression in a number of
fanciful genre texts, including mysteries, science fiction, and
horror stories. Situated in a mid-Victorian moment of frenetic
plant collecting from the far reaches of the British empire, Novel
Cultivations recognizes plants as vital and sentient subjects that
serve-often more so than people-as actors and narrative engines in
the nineteenth-century novel. Conceptions of native and natural
were decoupled by the revelation that nature was globally sourced,
a disruption displayed in the plots of gardens as in those of
novels. Elizabeth Chang examines here the agency asserted by plants
with shrewd readings of a range of fictional works, from monstrous
rhododendrons in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Mexican prickly
pears in Olive Schreiner's Story of an African Farm, to Algernon
Blackwood's hair-raising ""The Man Whom the Trees Loved"" and other
obscure ecogothic tales. This provocative contribution to
ecocriticism shows plants as buttonholes between fiction and
reality, registering changes of form and content in both realms.
"Some plants are inherently rare, while others become rare through
our actions." Rare Plants explores what makes the world's
most uncommon plants so exceptional, and by what means they have
become so scarce. From highlands to jungles, many of our most
extraordinary plants are vanishing at shocking rates, and this
exquisitely illustrated book explores 40 of these mysterious
species. Featuring stunning archive images and expert insight from
the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, Rare Plants explores
both the beauty and necessity of our endangered plant life.
A field guide to 600 wildflowers found in North America. Organized
by color and alphabetically by families, this user-friendly field
guide will enable wildflower enthusiasts and nature lovers to
identify and learn about the natural and cultural history of
flowering plants. Color photographs accompanied by plant
descriptions, range, flowering periods, and other natural history
notes such as historical uses, etymology, pollinator associations
will entice and educate readers from coast to coast.
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