In the Name of Plants
Remarkable plants and the extraordinary people behind their names
Published on 13. October 2022
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-0-565-09535-2 (ISBN)
Description
The names of plants that are so familiar to us ?magnolia, bougainvillea, sequioa ? may just be names, but behind the names lie stories of espionage and heroism, rivalry and mystery and inspiration. In the Name of Plants relates the stories of these people and the plants that were named after them.
Each chapter tells the story of the person for which each plant is named, many of whom were pioneering explorers, collectors and botanists - such as Alice Eastwood who has the yellow aster, Eastwoodia elegans, named after her. Eastwood explored previously uncharted territories in the 19th century and famously saved the California Academy of Science's priceless plant collection from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Subjects range from Charles Darwin (Darwinia) and legendary French botanist Pierre Magnol (Magnolia), to US founding fathers George Washington (Washingtonia) and Benjamin Franklin (Franklinia).
Each entry is accompanied by superb artworks from the Library of the Natural History Museum, as well as photography of specimens and wild plants and the essential taxonomic details and geographic spread for each species.
Each chapter tells the story of the person for which each plant is named, many of whom were pioneering explorers, collectors and botanists - such as Alice Eastwood who has the yellow aster, Eastwoodia elegans, named after her. Eastwood explored previously uncharted territories in the 19th century and famously saved the California Academy of Science's priceless plant collection from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Subjects range from Charles Darwin (Darwinia) and legendary French botanist Pierre Magnol (Magnolia), to US founding fathers George Washington (Washingtonia) and Benjamin Franklin (Franklinia).
Each entry is accompanied by superb artworks from the Library of the Natural History Museum, as well as photography of specimens and wild plants and the essential taxonomic details and geographic spread for each species.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Over 100 colour images
Dimensions
Height: 184 mm
Width: 238 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
816 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-565-09535-2 (9780565095352)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Merit Researcher and Head of the Plants Division at the Natural History Museum in London, Sandra Knapp has spent many years collecting plants in tropical Central and South America. She is an expert on the plant family Solanaceae, which includes such economically important species as the potato and tomato, and is the author of several books including Alfred Russel Wallace in the Amazon, The Gilded Canopy and Extraordinary Orchids.