Botany Science

You don’t need to be a professional landscaper to be able to grow your own thriving garden, and you definitely don’t need four acres of land to add a touch of nature to your home. Whether you’re a lifelong gardener looking for inspiration, or you’re just someone who loves being surrounded by nature, this comprehensive guide will give you everything you need to know about growing plants in small spaces with raised beds, containers, and vertical structures, so you can finally start on a gardening journey that will last a lifetime.

Originally published in 1972, Richard Mabey’s classic foraging guide has never been out of print since. Food for Free is a complete guide to help you safely identify edible species that grow around us, together with detailed field identification notes and recipes. In this stunning 50th anniversary edition, Richard Mabey’s updated text is accompanied by a wealth of practical information on identifying, collecting, cooking and preparing, as well as history and folklore.

It has never been simpler to grow psilocybin mushrooms at home for increased productivity, the pursuit of a spiritual awakening, or medicine! Have you always been intrigued by the idea of raising your own psilocybin mushrooms but are unsure where to begin? Are you intrigued by the possibility of natural medicine to address the underlying causes of issues rather than merely treating their symptoms? What can we learn from the psilocybin mushroom-eating cultures of the past who saw it as a divine food?

Have you ever wondered why the leaves of the Swiss cheese plant have holes? How aloe vera came to be harnessed as a medicinal powerhouse? Or why—despite your best efforts—you can’t keep your Venus flytrap alive? You are not alone: houseplant expert Jane Perrone has asked herself those very questions, and in Legends of the Leaf she digs deep beneath the surface to reveal the answers.

Vom winzigen Samen zum Giganten des Waldes – die aufregende Lebensgeschichte einer Buche als Hörbuch. Was würden uns Bäume erzählen, wenn sie sprechen könnten? Fast zehn Jahre nach Erscheinen von Das geheime Leben der Bäume hat die Forschung so viel neues Wissen erschlossen, dass es an der Zeit ist, die Bäume selbst zu Wort kommen zu lassen. Dazu leiht ihnen Deutschlands berühmtester Förster seine Stimme: Erstmals lässt er eine 250 Jahre alte Buche berichten, was ihr im Laufe der Zeit – vom Samen bis zum Giganten des Waldes – widerfährt.

While plants may not have brains or move around as we do, cutting-edge science is revealing that they have astonishing inner worlds of an alternate kind to ours. They can plan ahead, learn and have rich subjective experiences. They can even be put to sleep. If you can look in the right way, a world full of drama unfurls. In Planta Sapiens, Professor Paco Calvo offers a bold new perspective on plant biology and cognitive science. Using the latest scientific findings, Calvo challenges us to make an imaginative leap into a world that is so close and yet so alien.

As a child, Chris Thorogood dreamed of seeing Rafflesia - the plant with the world's largest flowers. Today he is a botanist at the University of Oxford's Botanic Garden and has dedicated his life to studying the biology of such extraordinary plants, working alongside botanists and foresters in Southeast Asia to document these huge, mysterious blooms. Pathless Forest is the story of his journey to study and protect this remarkable plant - a biological enigma, still little understood, which invades vines as a leafless parasite and steals its food from them.

Exploring the latest cutting-edge environmental and ecological studies, climate advisor and environmental advocate Judith Polich explains how we can now see how tree and plant communities function, revealing a holistic, interconnected, communal, and seemingly sentient new world. She explains how trees communicate, how they share resources, and other ways in which they express holistic and cooperative behaviors.

Self-confessed bad birdwatcher Simon Barnes thought he knew nothing about plants. He didn't object to them: trees are interesting, because birds perch in them; plants are useful as they create habitats and birds live in habitats. But while admiring the tenacity of some sea kale and yellow-horned poppy to thrive on an inhospitable shingle beach, he was struck by a truth - it all begins with plants. In this funny and inspiring book, Simon Barnes tells the story of a lifelong relationship with plants, and the realisation of the fact.

Are humans unwitting partners in evolution with psychedelic plants? Darwin’s Pharmacy shows they are by weaving the evolutionary theory of sexual selection and the study of rhetoric together with the science and literature of psychedelic drugs. Long suppressed as components of the human tool kit, psychedelic plants can be usefully modeled as “eloquence adjuncts” that intensify a crucial component of sexual selection in humans: discourse.

Botany was the darling and the powerhouse of the 18th century. As European ships ventured across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, discovery bloomed. Bounties of new plants were brought back, and their arrival meant much more than improved flowerbeds - it offered a new scientific frontier that would transform Europe’s industry, medicine, eating and drinking habits, and even fashion.

Award-winning poet and novelist Helen Humphreys returns to her series of nature meditations in this gorgeously written and illustrated book that takes a deep look at the forgotten world of herbariums and the people who amassed collections of plant specimens in the 19th and 20th centuries. From Emily Dickinson’s and Henry David Thoreau’s collections to the amateur naturalists whose names are forgotten but whose collections still grace our world, herbariums are the records of the often-humble plants that are still with us and those that are lost.

In The Nation of Plants, the most important, widespread, and powerful nation on Earth finally gets to speak. Like attentive parents, plants, after making it possible for us to live, have come to our aid once again, giving us their rules: the first Universal Declaration of Rights of Living Beings written by the plants. A short charter based on the general principles that regulate the common life of plants, it establishes norms applicable to all living beings.

Looking at the trees around his house, Tristan Gooley realises how little he has noticed, or even really seen them. He decides to embark journey, to investigate the signs that can be read from trees and everything about them that we often overlook. Tristan takes the listener on a series on micro-expeditions to uncover the signs to look for in each tree. In each journey he highlights at least one exemplary sign or pattern; from the everyday to the more exotic, from Kew Gardens in London to the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.

Viviendo en los límites de nuestra percepción ordinaria, los musgos son un elemento común del mundo natural, que sin embargo suele pasar desapercibido. Reserva de musgo es una fascinante mezcla de ciencia y reflexión personal que invita a los lectores a explorar y aprender de la vida elegante y sencilla de los musgos.

In forests, fields and even gardens, there is a constant exchange of information going on. Animals and plants must communicate with one another to survive, but they also tell lies, set traps, talk to themselves and speak to each other in a variety of unexpected ways. In Nature Is Never Silent, behavioural biologist Madlen Ziege reveals the fascinating world of nonhuman communication. In charming, humorous and accessible prose, she shows how nature’s language can help us to understand our own place in the natural world a little better.

Nos últimos anos a ciência tem comprovado que as árvores e o homem têm muito mais em comum do que poderíamos imaginar. Assim como nós, elas se comunicam, mantêm relacionamentos, formam famílias, cuidam dos doentes e dos filhos, têm memória, defendem-se de agressores e competem ferozmente com outras espécies. Em A vida secreta das árvores, o engenheiro florestal alemão Peter Wohlleben alia seus 20 anos de experiência às últimas descobertas científicas para examinar o dia a dia desses seres fantásticos.

Pflanzen bilden die Grundlagen für fast alle Lebensprozesse auf der Erde und natürlich auch für die Menschen. Sie sind uns selbstverständlich geworden, doch es scheint, dass wir den Bezug zu ihnen verloren haben. Oder doch nicht? Immerhin liefern uns Pflanzen Nahrungsmittel, Heilmittel, Energie, Rohstoffe für Kleidung und vieles mehr. Grund genug, höchste Wertschätzung zu zeigen und sich den Pflanzen wieder anzunähern.

In seinem berühmtesten Schriftstück liefert Alexander von Humboldt einen bemerkenswerten Text, der die Welt auf die endgültige Ausmessung derselbigen gründlich vorbereitete. Ein jeweils weit überproportionales Quantum an Erkenntnissucht, Abenteuerlust, Wissenschaftsgeist und Forscherdrang befähigten und beseelten diesen Mann ein bis dato unerreichtes Spektrum an geographischen, geologischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Fakten auf empirischer Basis in seinen Ansichten der Natur zu bündeln und dadurch dem geneigten Leser bzw.

Die Fortsetzung des Millionenbestsellers "Das geheime Leben der Bäume" als Hörbuch. Mit der Natur kann man keine Kompromisse schließen, sagt Peter Wohlleben. Auch wenn wir die Welt durch den Klimawandel zugrunde richten sollten - um den Wald brauchen wir uns keine Sorgen zu machen. Der kommt zurück. Es wäre nur schön, wenn wir dann noch da sind.