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A garden of marvels : how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants / Ruth Kassinger.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2014]Edition: First editionDescription: xviii, 395 pages : illustrations ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 0062048996 (hardback)
  • 0062049011 (trade paperback)
  • 9780062048998 (hardback)
  • 9780062049018 (trade paperback)
Subject(s):
Contents:
Pt. I. Inside a plant -- Cocktail, anyone? -- The birth and long life of the vegetable lamb -- Through a glass, however darkly -- The persecuted professor -- Inside a plant -- Pt. II. Roots -- Restless roots -- The enormous gourd -- The way of all water -- How to kill a hickory -- Our fine fungal friends -- Arsenic and young fronds -- The once and future wheat -- Off to the races -- Pt. III. Leaves -- New beginnings -- A momentous mint -- Leaves eat air -- The vegetable slug -- Once in a blue-green moon -- The tenacity of trees -- Amazing grass -- Pt. IV. Flowers -- Sex in the garden -- Who needs Romeo? -- Black petunias -- The abominable mystery -- Cheap sex -- Scent and sex -- Pt. V. Onward, upward, and afterward -- Trouble in paradise -- Onward and upward -- Afterward.
Summary: "In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, the author of Paradise Under Glass gives us a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab"-- Provided by publisher.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 580.92 K19 Available 33111007520717
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab.

In Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounted with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing lessons she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis.

In A Garden of Marvels, she extends the story. Frustrated by plants that fail to thrive, she sets out to understand the basics of botany in order to become a better gardener. She retraces the progress of the first botanists who banished myths and misunderstandings and discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, roots choose their food, and hormones make morning glories climb fence posts. She also visits modern gardens, farms, and labs to discover the science behind extraordinary plants like one-ton pumpkins, a truly black petunia, a biofuel grass that grows twelve feet tall, and the world's only photosynthesizing animal. Transferring her insights to her own garden, she nurtures a "cocktail" tree that bears five kinds of fruit, cures a Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi, and gets a tree to text her when it's thirsty.

Intertwining personal anecdote, accessible science, and untold history, the ever-engaging author takes us on an eye-opening journey into her garden--and yours.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [368]-379) and index.

Pt. I. Inside a plant -- Cocktail, anyone? -- The birth and long life of the vegetable lamb -- Through a glass, however darkly -- The persecuted professor -- Inside a plant -- Pt. II. Roots -- Restless roots -- The enormous gourd -- The way of all water -- How to kill a hickory -- Our fine fungal friends -- Arsenic and young fronds -- The once and future wheat -- Off to the races -- Pt. III. Leaves -- New beginnings -- A momentous mint -- Leaves eat air -- The vegetable slug -- Once in a blue-green moon -- The tenacity of trees -- Amazing grass -- Pt. IV. Flowers -- Sex in the garden -- Who needs Romeo? -- Black petunias -- The abominable mystery -- Cheap sex -- Scent and sex -- Pt. V. Onward, upward, and afterward -- Trouble in paradise -- Onward and upward -- Afterward.

"In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, the author of Paradise Under Glass gives us a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab"-- Provided by publisher.

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