Showing titles in Botany & Plants

Wise women, apothecaries, witches, herbalists: whatever you like to call them, those who cultivate plants for their apparent mystical properties have existed for thousands of years. The Witch's Garden tells the story of our folkloric fascination with these magical specimens, documenting the beliefs and rituals surrounding the natural world. This book beautifully evokes the bewitching nature of mysterious plants.

Dans ce livre plein de grâce, acclamé dans le monde entier, le forestier Peter Wohlleben nous apprend comment s'organise la société des arbres. Les forêts ressemblent à des communautés humaines. Les parents vivent avec leurs enfants, et les aident à grandir. Les arbres répondent avec ingéniosité aux dangers. Leur système radiculaire, semblable à un réseau internet végétal, leur permet de partager des nutriments avec les arbres malades mais aussi de communiquer entre eux.

Do you want to begin foraging but don’t know where to start? If you are a very beginner mushroom hunter, look no further! Learning to find and identify mushrooms is a wonderful way to get into nature! There is so much to learn that it can be overwhelming. This book makes it easy to begin.

Un jardín es un refugio ideal para huir del ajetreo del mundo y conectar con la naturaleza. Sin embargo, sabemos muy poco sobre los verdaderos beneficios de la jardinería. Investigaciones recientes demuestran que, cuando la practican, los presos tienen menos probabilidades de reincidir, los jóvenes en riesgo de exclusión tienden a perseverar en el sistema educativo y los ancianos viven más y mejor.

The smallest flowering plant, on Earth, is one of the most powerful, and widespread: duckweed. Usually, considered a nuisance, duckweed, upon close examination, is an impressive crop, in photosynthetic value. Ethanol, an industry dominated by the Corn Industry (King Corn), faces many challenges, including large water draws, rising fertilizer costs, large diesel fuel bills, and unintended impacts on Food markets.

Collections of preserved plant specimens, known as herbaria, have existed for nearly five centuries. These pressed and labeled plants have been essential resources for scientists, allowing them to describe and differentiate species and to document and research plant changes and biodiversity over time—including changes related to climate. Maura C. Flannery tells the history of herbaria, from the earliest collections belonging to such advocates of the technique as sixteenth-century botanist Luca Ghini, to the collections of poets, politicians, and painters, and to the digitization today.

From woodland mushrooms and riverbank redcurrants to garden weeds and urban cherry blossoms, Where the Wild Things Grow takes us on a journey through the forager's landscape. Drawing on 25 years of foraging experience, David Hamilton tells us how and where to hunt for the food that is hidden all around us. Along the way he delves into the forgotten histories and science of wild foods and their habitats and reveals his many foraging secrets, tips and recipes.

Long before the advent of conventional farming methods - which have focused on constant growth, human intervention, and genetic homogeneity - the apple had already grown to become the ubiquitous all-American symbol it is today. Known for their hardiness, ability to adapt to new environments, natural diversity, and plentiful bounty, wildly grown apples were once known as “America’s fruit” throughout the trading world.

In forests, fields and even gardens, there is a constant exchange of information going on. Animals and plants must communicate with one another to survive, but they also tell lies, set traps, talk to themselves and speak to each other in a variety of unexpected ways. In Nature Is Never Silent, behavioural biologist Madlen Ziege reveals the fascinating world of nonhuman communication. In charming, humorous and accessible prose, she shows how nature’s language can help us to understand our own place in the natural world a little better.

Flowers have been depicted as objects of beauty and wonder in countless paintings and poems, exchanged as tokens of love and affection, and displayed as symbols of both celebration and remembrance - "saying it with flowers" is truly part of the human experience. But how does the significance of flowers vary across cultures and at different points in history? And what makes certain flowers special?

Flowers, and the fruits that follow, feed, clothe, sustain, and inspire all humanity. Flowers are used to celebrate all-important occasions, to express love, and are also the basis of global industries. Americans buy 10 million flowers a day, and perfumes are a worldwide industry worth $30 billion annually. Stephen Buchmann takes us along on an exploratory journey of the roles flowers play in the production of our foods, spices, medicines, and perfumes while simultaneously bringing joy and health.

Are humans unwitting partners in evolution with psychedelic plants? Darwin’s Pharmacy shows they are by weaving the evolutionary theory of sexual selection and the study of rhetoric together with the science and literature of psychedelic drugs. Long suppressed as components of the human tool kit, psychedelic plants can be usefully modeled as “eloquence adjuncts” that intensify a crucial component of sexual selection in humans: discourse.

Rainbow Gum's Gift is the channeled teachings of one of Earth's great sisters. The wise 80-year-old rainbow gum brings you freedom from all past pains and hurts, self-love, and a unique way of guiding life's journey.

For millennia, trees have offered renewal and inspiration. They have provided for humanity on every level, from spiritual sanctuary to the raw material for our homes, books, and food. In this beautiful and revealing book, National Geographic illuminates exactly how trees influence the life of planet Earth—from our personal lives to the weather cycle. Essays tell the stories of the world's most remarkable trees, from Tane Mahura in New Zealand, the ancient Maori "lord of the forest," to Pando, a single aspen spreading over 100 acres: Earth's largest living thing.

Leif Bersweden has always been fascinated by wild plants. From a young age, his afternoons were spent hunting for and cataloguing the plants in his local area. But it is a landscape that is fast disappearing. Climate change, habitat destruction and declining pollinator populations mean that the future for plant life looks bleaker than ever before. Many of us are also unable to identify, or even notice, the plants that grow around us. Now a botanist, Leif decides to go on a mission, to explore the plants that Britain and Ireland have to offer.

Throughout history, trees have determined the tools we use, the boats we build, the stories we tell about the world and ourselves, the songs we sing, and some of our most important rituals. As such, our lives are intertwined with those of the trees and woodlands around us. In this journey deep into the woods, Wyl Menmuir travels the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland to meet the people who plant trees, the ecologists who study them, those who shape beautiful objects and tools from wood, and those who use them to help others.

Born in Canada to a Taiwanese mother and a Welsh father, steeped in both literary and scientific traditions, Jessica J. Lee is a perfectly placed observer of our world in motion. In this vibrant book of linked essays she explores the entanglements of the plant and human worlds, and the echoes and counterpoints she detects in the migration of plants and people - and the language we use to describe them.

This is the only succulent beginner's guide that you need! Get ready to jump-start your succulent-caring journey. You'll be fascinated and thrilled about what you can achieve by raising your own succulents. Succulents can provide you with a sense of peace and bring out the best in your interior design.

When he first envisioned becoming a farmer, author Emmet Van Driesche never imagined his main crop would be Christmas trees, nor that such a tree farm could be more of a managed forest than the conventional grid of perfectly sheared trees. Carving Out a Living on the Land tells the story of how Van Driesche navigated changing life circumstances, took advantage of unexpected opportunities, and leveraged new and old skills to piece together an economically viable living, while at the same time respecting the land’s complex ecological relationships.

Once, farmers knew how to make a living hedge and fed their flocks on tree-branch hay. Rural people knew how to prune hazel to foster abundance: both of edible nuts, and of straight, strong, flexible rods for bridges, walls, and baskets. No place could prosper without its inhabitants knowing how to cut their trees so they would sprout again. This created the healthiest, most sustainable, and most diverse woodlands that we have ever known. In this journey from the English fens to Spain, Japan, and California, William Bryant Logan rediscovers what was once an everyday ecology.