Around the World in 80 Plants

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I'm very tempted to travel to some of these countries to find them and see if I can apply my new knowledge. It was just informational enough where I feel I was gaining general knowledge without feeling like I was reading a textbook. Jonathan Drori CBE is a Trustee of The Eden Project and Cambridge Science Centre, an Ambassador for the WWF, and was for nine years a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and The Woodland Trust. Some of the unusual and strange facts will be completely new and fascinating to even very expert plants people. All of the plants in the book have a history of being useful at some point, whether that's the peacock flower of Barbosa or the Nutmeg plant.

Op het einde geeft Jonathan Drori de lezers nog handige tips om op een nieuwe manier naar planten te kijken, om je bewondering aan te wakkeren.It is full of shafts of knowledge that give fresh insight into our relationship with plants from around the world. From the seemingly familiar tomato and dandelion to the eerie mandrake and Spanish 'moss' of Louisiana, each of these stories is full of surprises. Or that myrrh was used in Biblical times for an antiseptic mouthwash as well as for incense and that the body of Admiral Nelson was preserved in myrrh-infused brandy to bring back to England (which the crew is said to have drunk in his honour)? and I have become more conscious than ever of the power of stories that intertwine science with history and culture. This is a fantastic little book, and what I most want to emphasize is that I truly think anyone can read and enjoy this!

Ultimately, it was informative and fun at times, but I felt it lacked the focus of Around the World in 80 Trees, which I loved.

For the Aztec civilization, medical treatment combined the use of plants with magic and religion; marigolds were part of the decoration and offerings at religious festivals, and deities were decorated with marigold garlands. Ik kijk nu vol bewondering naar de ogenschijnlijk eenvoudige paardenbloem (Taraxacum officinale) die in Estland wordt gevierd met een heus paardenbloemenfestival. At times the book made me angry and frustrated, and I was ready to pull out the highlighter and mark up botanical inaccuracies in it later (since I listened to the audiobook in the car I couldn't do it in the moment). And this would not be a complete review without a mention of the lavish and fabulous illustrations provided by Lucille Clerc. I had to pick up some other books in between reading this one just because it is so purely informational, but I would definitely recommend it to anybody wanting to dip their toes into learning a little bit more about plants.