The ideal portable companion, the world-renowned Collins Gem series returns with a fresh new look and updated material. This is the perfect pocket guide for nature enthusiasts keen to identify the wild flowers they might encounter on a walk along the coast or in the mountains, or a ramble through woodland, fields or wetlands. Authoritative text, beautiful photographs and detailed illustrations show the parts of the flower, stem, leaf and fruit, including both common and scientific names of each wild flower. Additionally, each entry features illustrations and description of appearance and colour, details on size, type of habitat, geographical range and flowering season, along with helpful information on herbal medicinal uses of each flower.

  Watch a thousand years unfold in the life of one magnificent tree! A thousand years ago, a tiny acorn fell to the ground. As the years pass, it grows . . . and GROWS into an enormous oak tree! As the centuries sweep by, children play games around the tree. Families dance about it. A fleeing king even hides inside its hollow trunk! The tree gives food and shelter to a host of animals, from squirrels and badgers to birds and beetles. After a thousand years, the ancient tree finally falls in a storm - but a new acorn sprouts, and the cycle of life begins all over again. The tree's magical life story is brought to life in Julia Donaldson's rich, dramatic rhyme. Victoria Sandøy's gorgeous, atmospheric illustrations perfectly capture the changing seasons, and the people and wildlife that pass by Children will love spotting all the creatures in the pictures, and seeing the games children play around the tree This is a book that encourages us all to look more closely at nature, and to appreciate the wonder of our ancient trees. The final pages of the book contain extra fascinating facts about oak trees and the animals that depend on them. Praise for The Christmas Pine, also by Julia Donaldson and Victoria Sandøy: "Magical . . . as well as paying tribute to tradition, the gentle rhythmic verse and stunning pictures illuminate the two other things close to Julia's heart: the power of children and song" Julia Donaldson is the author of many of the best-loved children's books ever written. She has been awarded a CBE for services to literature, and is the most celebrated children's writer in Britain today. Many of Julia Donaldson's beloved picture books have been made into award-winning animated films which are regularly shown on the BBC at Christmas.

Get ready for the shocking truth about botanical sex. Who knew that bee orchids trick insects into having sex with them, avocado flowers are female one day and male the next, and some flowers are the insect equivalent of nightclubs where males and females meet and mate? Bestselling popular science author Mike Allaby reveals over 200 of nature's most unseemly creations in this sensational expose. The sexual antics of plants are far more varied than those of people and plants have preferences and techniques for which we have no equivalent. Being rooted to the spot, many rely on pollinators for assistance and forget birds and bees, we're talking kangaroos, giraffes, and vampire bats. Botanical illustrations throw light on the gallery of pimps, hookers and gigolos who may be lurking in your back garden and spice up this compendium of scurrilous botany which - be warned - may shock the worldliest of gardeners.

This fifth volume of the Flora of Florida collection continues the definitive and comprehensive identification manual to the Sunshine State's 4,000 kinds of native and non-native ferns and fern allies, nonflowering seed plants, and flowering seed plants. Volume V contains the taxonomic treatments of 34 families of Florida's dicotyledons. Florida has the third most diverse vascular plant flora of any state in the United States, and the Flora of Florida volumes include all indigenous and naturalized taxa currently known to occur within its borders. With keys to family, genus, and species, and with families arranged alphabetically for easy reference, these volumes are the standard reference for botanists, researchers, consultants, and students alike.

From the author of The History of the World in 100 Animals, a BBC Radio Four Book of the Week, comes an inspirational new book that looks at the 100 plants that have had the greatest impact on humanity, stunningly illustrated throughout. As humans, we hold the planet in the palms of ours hands. But we still consume the energy of the sun in the form of food. The sun is available for consumption because of plants. Plants make food from the sun by the process of photosynthesis; nothing else in the world can do this. We eat plants, or we do so at second hand, by eating the eaters of plants. Plants give us food. Plants take in carbon dioxide and push out oxygen: they give us the air we breathe, direct the rain that falls and moderate the climate. Plants also give us shelter, beauty, comfort, meaning, buildings, boats, containers, musical instruments, medicines and religious symbols. We use flowers for love, we use flowers for death. The fossils of plants power our industries and our transport. Across history we have used plants to store knowledge, to kill, to fuel wars, to change our state of consciousness, to indicate our status. The first gun was a plant, we got fire from plants, we have enslaved people for the sake of plants. We humans like to see ourselves as a species that has risen above the animal kingdom, doing what we will with the world. But we couldn't live for a day without plants. Our past is all about plants, our present is all tied up with plants; and without plants there is no future. From the mighty oak to algae, from cotton to coca here are a hundred reasons why.

Text extracted from opening pages of book: TL CARNIVOROUS PLANTS BY FRANCIS ERNEST LLOYD D. Sc. k c. ( Wal f, ); F. R. S. C., F. L. S. Emeritus Professor of Botany, M. cGill University 1942 WALTHAM, MASS., U. S. A. Puomned oy the Cnronica Botanica Company First published MCMXLH By the Chronica Botanica Company of Waltham, Mass., U. S. A. All rights reserved New York, N. Y.: G. E. Stechert and Co., 31 East loth Street. San Francisco, CaL: J. W. Stacey, Inc., 236-238 Flood Building. Toronto 2: Wm. Dawson Subscription Service, Ltd., 70 King Street, East. Mexico, D. F.: Livraria Cervantes, Calle de 57 No. i, Despacho 3; Ap. 2302. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos, Caixa Postal 3481. Buenos Aires: Acme Agency, Bartolom6 Mitre 552. Santiago de Chile: Livraria Zamorano y Caperan, Casilla 362. London, W. 1: Wm. Dawson and Sons, Ltd., 43 Weymouth Street. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnaja Kniga, Kouznetski Most 18. Calcutta: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 294 Bow Bazar Street. Johannesburg: Juta and Co., Ltd., 43 Pritchard Street. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, Ltd., 89 Castlereagh Street. Made and printed in the U. S. A. PREFACE The experience which has led to the writing of this book began in 1929 when, examining a species related to Utricularia gibba, / made an observation of some importance in understanding the mechanism of the trap. This begot a desire to study as many other species of the genus as I could obtain for com parison, primarily to determine the validity of my conclusions. My feeling that research in this field was promising was strengthened by the discovery that the pertinent literature was singularly barren of the information most needed, that is to say, precise accounts of the structure of theentrance mechanisms of the traps. And an examination of much herbarium material, because of the meagreness of the underground parts of the terrestrial types resulting from indifferent methods of collection, forced the conclusion that, even had other difficulties inherent in studying dried material not intervened, it would be necessary to obtain adequately preserved specimens. This meant a wide cor re spondence and, if possible, extensive travel. The uncertainty of achieving the latter made the former imperative. The responses to my requests for help were numerous and generous from all parts of the world, with the result that there came to me from many sources well preserved material which fairly represented the genus, for it brought to me some 100 of the total of 250 or more species. The most lavish single contribu tion was put at my disposal by my teacher and friend, KARL VON GOEBEL, who gave me a collection of Utricularia collected by him in the tropics of the Old and New Worlds, and in temperate Australia. Many others, while they may have contributed less in amount, could have been no less generous, for the work of collecting, preserving, packing and posting specimens is by no means an easy job. Travels included two journeys, one to Africa and one to Africa and Aus tralia, the latter made possible by a parting gift from my colleagues of McGill University on my retirement from the Macdonald Chair of Botany in 1935. At the university centres visited I was afforded all kinds of help: laboratory space, guidance to promising localities and means of transportation. Several summers were spent also at the Botanical Institute of the University of Munich on the original invitation of ProfessorGOEBEL, seconded, after his death, by Professor F. VON WETTSTEIN and his successor Dr. F. C. VON FABER. During my preoccupation with Utricularia / had to prepare two presi dential addresses, and I was thus led, as has many another in like circum stances, to give an account of the whole field of plant carnivory. My interests were widened in this way, and soon I became imbued with the idea of bringing together, and perhaps of adding to, our knowledge of this fascinating group of plants. This extended my list of desiderata. On my requests sent to various correspondent