Gods, wasps, and stranglers : the secret history and redemptive future of fig trees / Mike Shanahan.
Material type: TextPublisher: White River Junction, Vermont : Chelsea Green Publishing, 2016Description: 196 pages ; 23 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781603587143 (hardcover)
- 1603587144 (hardcover)
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Dr. James Carlson Library | NonFiction | 583.45 S528 | Available | 33111008576973 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Over millions of years, fig trees have shaped our world, influenced our evolution, nourished our bodies and fed our imaginations. And as author and ecologist Mike Shanahan proclaims, "The best could be yet to come."
Gods, Wasps and Stranglers weaves together the mythology, history and ecology of one of the world's most fascinating--and diverse--groups of plants, from their starring role in every major religion to their potential to restore rainforests, halt the loss of rare and endangered species and even limit climate change.
In this lively and joyous book, Shanahan recounts the epic journeys of tiny fig wasps, whose eighty-million-year-old relationship with fig trees has helped them sustain more species of birds and mammals than any other trees; the curious habits of fig-dependent rhinoceros hornbills; figs' connection to Krishna and Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad; and even their importance to Kenya's struggle for independence.
Ultimately, Gods, Wasps and Stranglers is a story about humanity's relationship with nature, one that is as relevant to our future as it is to our past.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 168-196).
Snakes and ladders & tantalising figs -- Trees of life, trees of knowledge -- A long seduction -- banyans and the birth of botany -- Botanical monkeys -- Sex & violence in the hanging gardens -- Struggles for existence -- Goodbye to the gardeners, hello to the heat -- From dependence to domination -- The war of the trees -- The testimony of volcanoes -- Once destroyed, forever lost? -- A wedding invitation.
They are trees of life and trees of knowledge. They are wish-fulfillers rainforest royalty more precious than gold. They are the fig trees, and they have affected humanity in profound but little-known ways. Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers tells their amazing story.