The Seed Detective: Uncovering the secret histories of remarkable vegetables by Adam Alexander, 2022. Chelsea Green Publishing UK. What do you think of when seed banks are mentioned? Perhaps Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank...
Amber Waves: The extraordinary biography of wheat, from wild grass to world megacrop by Catherine Zabinski 2020. The University of Chicago Press. Biographies are usually written about people. However, Catherine...
Or, rather, something to ponder as you finish your meal, maybe with a coffee. Whatever your food(s) of choice, you need the right equipment – e.g. teeth – to cope with it (unless it’s a liquid or intravenously...
Avid readers of the Botany One blog will no doubt be aware of The Story of Soy. Written by Christine du Bois it makes the compelling case for the global importance of that crop plant. But, as productive and globally...
The Story of Soy by Christine du Bois 2018. Reaktion Books Ltd. Before encountering Christine du Bois’ book, The Story of Soy, I had little real idea about what soy was. OK, as a botanist I know it was a legume, Glycine...
What would you imagine was carried along the Silk Road(s), that ancient route that connected the far-East to the near-East and Europe? Silks? Well, yes, and spices, etc. (and not forgetting traffic in infectious human...
What! That’s news?? Surely everybody knows that many plants are pollinated by bees? Hopefully, yes, but this item is not about that well-known plant-insect association. OK, but does it feature mammoths? No, but it does...