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Books > Sport & Leisure > Natural history, country life & pets > Plant life: general
This wide-ranging and lavish book, substantially updated for this new large-format edition, presents an expert survey of the incredible floral diversity of the different regions of the world. More than 1730 species are featured, arranged according to region and then by plant family. The key features of each main entry are described to help identify the species, and each entry is illustrated with a botanically accurate profile of the plant, together with identifying details and a map showing where the species originated. With 3800 specially commissioned paintings, maps and photographs, this beautifully illustrated guide to the wild flowers and flora of the world is a must-have volume for every naturalist.
Medicinal Plants of East Africa is a fully illustrated guide to 136 East African plants with important medicinal applications. Initially released in 2010, this fully revised edition updates the species descriptions, photographs and range of medicinal uses, and expands on the pharmacological properties of the plant parts. Supported by more than 600 photographs, the book:
Covering Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, this volume is a vital addition to the bookshelves of botanists, health and wellness practitioners, students, travelers, and all who have an interest in the healing properties of plants.
Before 1910 the American chestnut was one of the most common trees in the eastern United States. Although historical evidence suggests the natural distribution of the American chestnut extended across more than four hundred thousand square miles of territory-an area stretching from eastern Maine to southeast Louisiana-stands of the trees could also be found in parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington State, and Oregon. An important natural resource, chestnut wood was preferred for woodworking, fencing, and building construction, as it was rot resistant and straight grained. The hearty and delicious nuts also fed wildlife, people, and livestock. Ironically, the tree that most piqued the emotions of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Americans has virtually disappeared from the eastern United States. After a blight fungus was introduced into the United States during the late nineteenth century, the American chestnut became functionally extinct. Although the virtual eradication of the species caused one of the greatest ecological catastrophes since the last ice age, considerable folklore about the American chestnut remains. Some of the tree's history dates to the very founding of our country, making the story of the American chestnut an integral part of American cultural and environmental history. The American Chestnut tells the story of the American chestnut from Native American prehistory through the Civil War and the Great Depression. Davis documents the tree's impact on nineteenth-and early twentieth-century American life, including the decorative and culinary arts. While he pays much attention to the importation of chestnut blight and the tree's decline as a dominant species, the author also evaluates efforts to restore the American chestnut to its former place in the eastern deciduous forest, including modern attempts to genetically modify the species. Accessible and well illustrated, this comprehensive history includes chapters on: the evolutionary history of the species the impact of chestnuts on Native American culture Henry David Thoreau's relationship with the tree uses in furniture making, building construction, tanning, and cityscaping the true origins of the chestnut blight fungus the U.S. chestnut revival and restoration efforts genetic resistance and the use of biotechnology to save the species
The irresistible story of Japanese cherry blossoms, threatened by political ideology and saved by an unknown Englishman 'This is not just a tale of trees, but of . . . endeavour, war and reconciliation' Sunday Times Collingwood Ingram, born in 1880, became known as 'Cherry' for his defining obsession. As a young man, he travelled to Japan and learned of the astonishing displays of cherry blossoms, or sakura. On a return visit in 1926, Ingram witnessed frightening changes to the country's cherry population. A cloned variety was sweeping the landscape and being used as a symbol for Japan's expansionist ambitions. Determined to protect the diversity of the trees, Ingram began sending the rare varieties from his own garden in England back to Japan with the help of a network of 'cherry guardians'. This is an eloquent portrait of an extraordinary man whose legacy we enjoy every spring, and his unsung place in botanic history. 'Engrossing . . . A portrait of great charm and sophistication' Christopher Harding, Guardian Winner of the 2020 Award for Excellence from The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries
A fascinating exploration of the natural history of scent and human perceptions of fragrance from the viewpoint of plant and pollinator "An evocative journey that awakens one's curiosity to an oft-forgotten sense."-Dana Dunham, Scientific American Plants have long harnessed the chemical characteristics of aromatic compounds to shape the world around them. Frankincense resin from the genus Boswellia seals injured tissues and protects trees from invading pathogens. Jasmine produces a molecule called linalool that attracts pollinating moths with its flowery scent. Tobacco uses a similarly sweet-smelling compound called benzyl acetone to attract pollinators. Only recently in the evolutionary history of plants, however, have humans learned to co-opt their fragrances to seduce, heal, protect, and alter moods themselves. In this wide-ranging and accessible new book, biologist-turned-perfumer Elise Vernon Pearlstine turns our human-centered perception of fragrance on its head and investigates plants' evolutionary reasons for creating aromatic molecules. Delving into themes of spirituality, wealth, power, addiction, royalty, fantasy, and more, Pearlstine uncovers the natural history of aromatic substances and their intersection with human culture and civilization.
This title features the flora of the Vice County of Renfrewshire. It marks the culmination of over 50 years of field recording by local botanists and over 18 years of fieldwork and in-depth search of historical records by the author.
Cheerful and warm, this Cactus Notecard Set by favourite illustrator Maria Carluccio is right on trend with your other favourite stationery/home fashion designs. Our notecards are blank inside and are the perfect way to drop a note to a loved one or friend to say thank you or just a simple hello. 10 notecards - blank inside - in 1 lovely hand-painted image Foil accents 10 classic white envelopes Packaged in an easy portable clear acetate box Card measures 127 x 101 mm Box measures 131 x 109 x 15 mm We choose the best images from well-known classic and contemporary fine artists, plus talented emerging illustrators and designers from around the globe. Maria Carluccio has received multiple awards for her work from the New York Society of Illustrators and 3x3 magazine. Her artwork can be seen on children's books, gift products, wall decor, and fabric.
Diana Beresford-Kroeger - a world-recognised botanist and medical biochemist - has revolutionised our understanding of the natural world with her startling insights into the hidden life of trees. In this riveting memoir, she uncovers the roots of her discoveries in her extraordinary childhood in Ireland. Soon after, her brilliant mind bloomed into an illustrious scientific career that melds the intricacies of the natural world with the truths of traditional Celtic wisdom. To Speak for the Trees uniquely blends the story of Beresford-Kroeger's incredible life and her outstanding achievement as a scientist. It elegantly shows us how forests can not only heal us as people but can also help save the planet. AUTHOR: Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a world-recognized botanist, medical biochemist, and author, whose work uniquely combines western scientific knowledge and the traditional concepts of the ancient world. Her books include The Sweetness of a Simple Life, The Global Forest, Arboretum Borealis, Arboretum America, Time Will Tell, and A Garden for Life. Currently she is advocating on behalf of an ambitious global bioplan that encourages ordinary people to develop a new relationship with nature and to restore the global forest.
Celebrate the beauty of mushrooms with this fully-illustrated 500-piece puzzle and booklet set, featuring colorful illustrations of several North American varieties. Specifications: A 500-piece puzzle, printed in full color on high-quality stock.Puzzle dimensions: This puzzle measures approximately 16 x 20 inches when finished.Fully illustrated package: This puzzle, deluxe box, and booklet feature original illustrations of notable mushrooms. Book included: Learn the characteristics of a selection of particularly common or interesting mushroom varieties, as well as tips for finding them, in the enclosed 32-page paperback book (5 x 6 inches), featuring full-color artwork throughout.Perfect gift: A unique gift for mushroom and nature lovers of all ages.
This book successfully combines a most enjoyable and detailed account of the well-known author's many journeys through China. First and foremost, Travels in China provides a practical assessment of the plants that are either of ornamental merit or botanical interest to gardeners in the West. Roy Lancaster describes some 1,000 different plants in their natural habitat and provides an eminently readable account of a fascinating country, its people, and the plants that have enriched the gardens of Europe and North America. Hundreds of Lancaster's own attractive and colourful photographs are reproduced, interspersed with fascinating descriptions and anecdotes from his travels. This is a book about plants from a country so rich in variety that there are 50% more species on one mountain in China than there are in the whole of the British Isles. Indeed, the wide range of climatic conditions in a country as vast as China makes this book relevant to all gardeners, be they from Norway or Spain, the United
Thousands of readers have had their experience of being in a forest changed forever by reading Tom Wessels s Reading the Forested Landscape. Was this forest once farmland? Was it logged in the past? Was there ever a major catastrophe like a fire or a wind storm that brought trees down? Now Wessels takes that wonderful ability to discern much of the history of the forest from visual clues and boils it all down to a manageable field guide that you can take out to the woods and use to start playing forest detective yourself. Wessels has created a key a fascinating series of either/or questions to guide you through the process of analyzing what you see. You ll feel like a woodland Sherlock Holmes. No walk in the woods will ever be the same.
The Great Smoky Mountains, which is part of an International Biosphere Reserve and contains nearly 200,000 acres of old growth forest. The extraordinary mosaic of life zones -- including the world's finest example of a temperate deciduous forest -- supports an estimated 5,600 species of trees, shrubs, and herbs including more than 1,600 species of flowering plants. This beautifully illustrated guide highlights over 140 familiar and unique species of trees, shrubs and wildflowers. Laminated for durability, this lightweight, pocket-sized folding guide is an excellent source of portable information and ideal for field use by visitors and residents alike. Made in the USA.
The largest edible fruit native to the United States tastes like a cross between a banana and a mango. It grows wild in twenty-six states, gracing Eastern forests each fall with sweet-smelling, tropical-flavored abundance. Historically, it fed and sustained Native Americans and European explorers, presidents, and enslaved African Americans, inspiring folk songs, poetry, and scores of place names from Georgia to Illinois. Its trees are an organic grower's dream, requiring no pesticides or herbicides to thrive, and containing compounds that are among the most potent anticancer agents yet discovered. So why have so few people heard of the pawpaw, much less tasted one? In Pawpaw-a 2016 James Beard Foundation Award nominee in the Writing & Literature category-author Andrew Moore explores the past, present, and future of this unique fruit, traveling from the Ozarks to Monticello; canoeing the lower Mississippi in search of wild fruit; drinking pawpaw beer in Durham, North Carolina; tracking down lost cultivars in Appalachian hollers; and helping out during harvest season in a Maryland orchard. Along the way, he gathers pawpaw lore and knowledge not only from the plant breeders and horticulturists working to bring pawpaws into the mainstream (including Neal Peterson, known in pawpaw circles as the fruit's own "Johnny Pawpawseed"), but also regular folks who remember eating them in the woods as kids, but haven't had one in over fifty years. As much as Pawpaw is a compendium of pawpaw knowledge, it also plumbs deeper questions about American foodways-how economic, biologic, and cultural forces combine, leading us to eat what we eat, and sometimes to ignore the incredible, delicious food growing all around us. If you haven't yet eaten a pawpaw, this book won't let you rest until you do.
Learn to identify North Carolina and South Carolina trees with this handy field guide, organized by leaf type and attachment. With this famous field guide by award-winning author and naturalist Stan Tekiela, you can make tree identification simple, informative, and productive. There's no need to look through dozens of photos of trees that don't grow in the Carolinas. Learn about 153 species found in the region, organized by leaf type and attachment. Just look at a tree's leaves, then go to the correct section to learn what it is. Fact-filled information contains the particulars that you want to know, while full-page photographs provide the visual detail needed for accurate identification. Book Features 153 species: Every native tree plus common non-natives Easy to use: Thumb tabs show leaf type and attachment Compare feature: Decide between look-alikes Stan's Notes: Naturalist tidbits and facts Professional photos: Crisp, stunning full-page images This new edition includes updated photographs; expanded information; a Quick Compare section for leaves, needles, and silhouettes; and even more of Stan's expert insights. So grab Trees of the Carolinas Field Guide for your next outing-to help ensure that you positively identify the trees that you see.
The definitive guide to the therapeutic Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or the art and science of how trees can promote health and happiness Notice how a tree sways in the wind. Run your hands over its bark. Take in its citrusy scent. As a society we suffer from nature deficit disorder, but studies have shown that spending mindful, intentional time around trees--what the Japanese call shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing--can promote health and happiness. In this beautiful book--featuring more than 100 color photographs from forests around the world, including the forest therapy trails that criss-cross Japan--Dr. Qing Li, the world's foremost expert in forest medicine, shows how forest bathing can reduce your stress levels and blood pressure, strengthen your immune and cardiovascular systems, boost your energy, mood, creativity, and concentration, and even help you lose weight and live longer. Once you've discovered the healing power of trees, you can lose yourself in the beauty of your surroundings, leave everyday stress behind, and reach a place of greater calm and wellness.
At the tips of our forks and on our dinner plates, a buffet of botanical dalliance awaits us. Sex and food are intimately intertwined, and this relationship is nowhere more evident than among the plants that sustain us. From lascivious legumes to horny hot peppers, most of humanity’s calories and other nutrition come from seeds and fruits—the products of sex—or from flowers, the organs that make plant sex possible. Sex has also played an arm’s-length role in delivering plant food to our stomachs, as human handmade evolution (plant breeding, or artificial selection) has turned wild species into domesticated staples. In Sex on the Kitchen Table, Norman C. Ellstrand takes us on a vegetable-laced tour of this entire sexual adventure. Starting with the love apple (otherwise known as the tomato) as a platform for understanding the kaleidoscopic ways that plants can engage in sex, successive chapters explore the sex lives of a range of food crops, including bananas, avocados, and beets, finally ending with genetically engineered squash—a controversial, virus-resistant vegetable created by a process that involves the most ancient form of sex. Peppered throughout are original illustrations and delicious recipes, from sweet and savory tomato pudding to banana puffed pancakes, avocado toast (of course), and both transgenic and non-GMO tacos. An eye-opening medley of serious science, culinary delights, and humor, Sex on the Kitchen Table offers new insight into fornicating flowers, salacious squash, and what we owe to them. So as we sit down to dine and ready for that first bite, let us say a special grace for our vegetal vittles: let’s thank sex for getting them to our kitchen table.
A fascinating look at the myths, folklore and botany behind over 70 British wildflowers. A fascinating look at the myths, folklore and botany behind over 70 British wildflowers. From hedgerows to meadows, wildflowers can be found throughout our green and pleasant land. In this book, journalist and garden writer Rosamond Richardson traces the history and myths behind each flower to discover the fascinating ways in which the plants were used. Discover which flower used as a medieval lie-detector to test the innocence of suspected criminals, or stuffed in the shoes of Roman centurions to prevent damage to their feet as they marched. From periwinkles, beloved of Chaucer, and the oxlips and 'nodding violet' growing in the forest of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the book celebrates the important role wildflowers have played in literature, as well as their uses in food and medicine, and the history, myths and tales behind each species. The nineteenth-century poet John Clare wrote, 'I love wildflowers (none are weeds with me)'. This book is a celebration of the bountiful history behind Britain's beloved wildflowers and is perfect for anyone with an interest in gardening, history or the natural world.
Identifying wildlife in Britain and Ireland is quick and easy with this complete practical field guide to the animals, plants, and fungi of the British Isles. The pocket-sized format means Pocket Nature Wildlife of Britain and Ireland is perfectly portable and ideal for slipping into your rucksack while rambling, or popping into the glove compartment for trips further afield. Packed with in-situ photography and text written by wildlife experts, this indispensable book covers everything from trees, wild flowers, and fungi to wild animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects. The key features of this beautiful book to British and Irish wildlife includes: - Close-up photography shows key details and highlights distinguishing features, making it easy to identify species. - Each entry includes at-a-glance facts for quick reference. - Simple graphics provide information on scale and silhouette shape to aid quick identification. -Distribution maps provide a quick and easy guide to the best areas to spot each species This nature book is organized into groups that are easily understood and recognized by the complete novice. Coverage is comprehensive, with more than 1,000 species included. Each entry comprises a prominent photo of the subject for identification, supporting photos that show important details or variations, and a data panel to summarize key facts consistently. A simple text profile picks out the most useful details to aid accurate identification and provides interesting background information. Maps show you where you can expect to find a species, so you can plan your spotting and make the most of your surroundings, whether you are on a holiday browse or serious quest. From the Hummingbird Hawk-moth to the False Deathcap fungus, Pocket Nature Wildlife of Britain and Ireland is the ideal family guide to wildlife in the British Isles.
Almost all the books that have been published on plant hunting focus on the so-called 'golden age' that ended with the death of Frank Kingdon Ward in 1958. One might be forgiven for thinking that plant hunting itself came to an end in 1958. On the contrary, there have been more new plant introductions in the past thirty years than ever before. This book tells the stories of the modern-day plant hunters - such pioneering adventurers as Mikinori Ogisu, Dan Hinkley, Roy Lancaster, Ed de Vogel, Lin Yu-Lin, Michael Wickenden and Claire Scobie. The author also examines the search for medicinal plants and the work of scientific institutions, both of which have been largely ignored, and considers such developments as the effect of habitat destruction on plant loss and plant diversity.
This thorough and meticulous study, the result of nearly a quarter-century of research, examines the island biogeography of plants on continental islands in Barkley Sound, British Columbia. Invaluable both because of its geographical setting and because of the duration of the study, Plants on Islands summarizes the diversity, dynamics, and distribution of the approximately three hundred species of plants on more than two hundred islands. Martin Cody uses his extensive data set to test various aspects of island biogeographic theory. His thoughtful analysis, constrained by taxon and region, elucidates and enhances the understanding of the biogeographic patterns and dynamics. He provides an overview of the basic theory, concepts, and analytical tools of island biogeography. Also discussed are island relaxation to lower equilibrium species numbers post-isolation, plant distributions variously limited by island area, isolation and climatic differences, adaptation to local abiotic and biotic environments within islands, and the evolution of different island phenotypes. The book concludes with a valuable consideration of equilibrium concepts and of the interplay of coexistence and competition. Certain to challenge, Plants on Islands is among the first books to critically analyze the central tenets of the theory of island biogeography.
The Ozark Mountains in Missouri and Arkansas have had a long history of foraging, ever since the earliest white settlers came from the Appalachians and survived off of what they could find, trap, and hunt. Today, foraging remains a major activity among the outdoor community there, supported in large part by established buyers of local edibles such as ginseng, wild berries, and nuts. Foraging the Ozarks, written by local wilderness expert Bo Brown, highlights about a hundred commonly found edibles in the Interior Highlands, from ubiquitous herbs to endemic species. With sidebars, recipes, helpful tips, and toxin warnings throughout, Foraging the Ozarks is the only guidebook the Ozark outdoor enthusiast will need to pick it, cook it, and eat it.
Ever since the first human settlements 10,000 years ago, weeds have dogged our footsteps. They are there as the punishment of 'thorns and thistles' in Genesis and , two millennia later, as a symbol of Flanders Field. They are civilisations' familiars, invading farmland and building-sites, war-zones and flower-beds across the globe. Yet living so intimately with us, they have been a blessing too. Weeds were the first crops, the first medicines. Burdock was the inspiration for Velcro. Cow parsley has become the fashionable adornment of Spring weddings. Weaving together the insights of botanists, gardeners, artists and poets with his own life-long fascination, Richard Mabey examines how we have tried to define them, explain their persistence, and draw moral lessons from them. One persons weed is another's wild beauty.
A beautifully written classic of nature writing. 'A masterly account...of supreme interest...a classic' Country Life Long accepted as the best work on the subject, Oliver Rackham's book is both a comprehensive history of Britain's woodland and a field-work guide that presents trees individually and as part of the landscape. From prehistoric times, through the Roman period and into the Middle Ages, Oliver Rackham describes the changing character, role and history of trees and woodland. He concludes this definitive study with a section on the conservation and future of Britain's trees, woodlands and hedgerows. |
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