Tag - economic botany

Cereal thriller brings home the bacon*

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...

This is a berry good book!

Berries by Victoria Dickenson 2020. Reaktion Books Ltd. Even though I’m a Botanist I’ve never had a great understanding of fruits and seeds. I am however, aware that the fruit botanically known as a berry has a very...

Mum’s the word* in new plant book

Chrysanthemum by Twigs Way 2020. Reaktion Books Ltd. Despite being a declared lover of plants, I didn’t include ‘mums’ – as chrysanthemums are commonly known – amongst the plants that I consider most interesting. It was...

Plants that … CURE

Plants that cure: A natural history of the world’s most important medicinal plants* by Elizabeth A Dauncey and Melanie–Jayne R Howes, 2020. Kew Publishing. A few years ago Kew published a book about the deadly...

Bring on the birch!

Birch by Anna Lewington 2018. Reaktion Books Ltd. “Miserable, naked, hungry”. These three little words are used by the Phytophactor (the ‘nom de blog’ of Illinois State University Professor of Botany Joseph Armstrong)...

Plant food and sex (lots of sex!)

Sex on the Kitchen Table: The Romance of Plants and your Food by Norman C Ellstrand 2018. University of Chicago Press. What comes to mind at the mention of sex on the kitchen table? * Perhaps many different things –...