The Secret Life of Plants

Author: Peter Tompkins
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006287442X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 420

Book Description
"Once in a while you find a book that stuns you. Its scope leaves you breathless. This is such a book." — John White, San Francisco Chronicle Explore the inner world of plants and its fascinating relation to mankind, as uncovered by the latest discoveries of science. In this truly revolutionary and beloved work, drawn from remarkable research, Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird cast light on the rich psychic universe of plants. The Secret Life of Plants explores plants' response to human care and nurturing, their ability to communicate with man, plants' surprising reaction to music, their lie-detection abilities, their creative powers, and much more. Tompkins and Bird's classic book affirms the depth of humanity's relationship with nature and adds special urgency to the cause of protecting the environment that nourishes us.

Flora

Author: DK
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0744046319
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 440

Book Description
Let the experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens guide you around the beautiful and mysterious world that is the plant kingdom. From regulating the air we breathe to providing food, clothes, fuels, and medicines - plants are fundamental to our lives. Discover an extraordinary diversity of species, which includes a grass that grows a meter a day, roots that breathe air, and "queen of the night" cactuses whose rare blooms vanish before dawn. In a combination of art and science, Flora celebrates plants from majestic trees to microscopic algae, explaining how they germinate, grow, and reproduce. It presents species that have evolved to accommodate pollinating insects such as the foxglove, and plants that have adapted to flourish in even the most hostile of habitats. Pierre-Joseph Redoute in the 18th-century was described as the "Raphael of flowers". Flora showcases his botanical paintings as well as those of Georg Ehret and others in this gorgeous visual celebration of plants through the ages. Whether you are a keen gardener, naturalist, or botany student, this beautiful book is a treat that will entice, inform, and amaze.

The Secret Lives of Plants!

Author: Janet Slingerland
Publisher: Capstone
ISBN: 1429676868
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 33

Book Description
"In graphic novel format, explores plant biology, including life cycle, photosynthesis, transpiration, respiration, and reproduction"--Provided by publisher.

The Life of Plants

Author: Emanuele Coccia
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509531548
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 183

Book Description
We barely talk about them and seldom know their names. Philosophy has always overlooked them; even biology considers them as mere decoration on the tree of life. And yet plants give life to the Earth: they produce the atmosphere that surrounds us, they are the origin of the oxygen that animates us. Plants embody the most direct, elementary connection that life can establish with the world. In this highly original book, Emanuele Coccia argues that, as the very creator of atmosphere, plants occupy the fundamental position from which we should analyze all elements of life. From this standpoint, we can no longer perceive the world as a simple collection of objects or as a universal space containing all things, but as the site of a veritable metaphysical mixture. Since our atmosphere is rendered possible through plants alone, life only perpetuates itself through the very circle of consumption undertaken by plants. In other words, life exists only insofar as it consumes other life, removing any moral or ethical considerations from the equation. In contrast to trends of thought that discuss nature and the cosmos in general terms, Coccia’s account brings the infinitely small together with the infinitely big, offering a radical redefinition of the place of humanity within the realm of life.

The Private Life of Plants

Author: David Attenborough
Publisher: Princeton Univ Department of Art &
ISBN: 9780691006390
Category : Botany.
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Shows how plants avoid predators, find food, increase their territory, reproduce, and obtain sunlight

The Emerald Planet

Author: David Beerling
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192529781
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Book Description
Plants have profoundly moulded the Earth's climate and the evolutionary trajectory of life. Far from being 'silent witnesses to the passage of time', plants are dynamic components of our world, shaping the environment throughout history as much as that environment has shaped them. In The Emerald Planet, David Beerling puts plants centre stage, revealing the crucial role they have played in driving global changes in the environment, in recording hidden facets of Earth's history, and in helping us to predict its future. His account draws together evidence from fossil plants, from experiments with their living counterparts, and from computer models of the 'Earth System', to illuminate the history of our planet and its biodiversity. This new approach reveals how plummeting carbon dioxide levels removed a barrier to the evolution of the leaf; how plants played a starring role in pushing oxygen levels upwards, allowing spectacular giant insects to thrive in the Carboniferous; and it strengthens fascinating and contentious fossil evidence for an ancient hole in the ozone layer. Along the way, Beerling introduces a lively cast of pioneering scientists from Victorian times onwards whose discoveries provided the crucial background to these and the other puzzles. This understanding of our planet's past sheds a sobering light on our own climate-changing activities, and offers clues to what our climatic and ecological futures might look like. There could be no more important time to take a close look at plants, and to understand the history of the world through the stories they tell. Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.

What a Plant Knows

Author: Daniel Chamovitz
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374288739
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
Explores the secret lives of various plants, from the colors they see to whether or not they really like classical music to their ability to sense nearby danger.

The Secret Teachings of Plants

Author: Stephen Harrod Buhner
Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Co
ISBN: 1591430356
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Book Description
Ancient and indigenous peoples have insisted their knowledge of plant medicines came from the plants themselves, perceived through a heart-centered mode of perception, not trial-and-error experimentation. Author Stephen Harrod Buhner explores this heart-centered mode of perception, helping readers learn about the medicinal uses of plants and gather information directly from the heart of Nature.

Secrets of the Soil

Author: Peter Tompkins
Publisher: books catalog
ISBN: 9788129105639
Category : Agricultural ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 472

Book Description
This book,a fascinating companion to The Secret Life of Plants by the same authors, tells the story of the innovative, nontraditional, often surprising things that certain scientists, farmers, and mystics are doing to prevent the slow degradation of our planet. For example, using the techniques of Rudolf Steiner s biodynamic agriculture with its reliance on ethereal forces from the planets,Dan Carlson s growth stimulating Sonic Bloom, and rock dust fertilizer to revitalize depleted soils; or gardening with the help of truly amazing new technologies to reverse serious agricultural problems.The authors illustrate,in a truly enlightening and convincing manner, the pivotal role that the natural elements play in ourlives, and the necessity of cultivating and sustaining a relationship with one most basic of them the soil.

The Green Planet

Author: Simon Barnes
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473532418
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
Praise for The Green Planet (BBC One) 'David Attenborough's gobsmacking, awe-inspiring return' The Guardian 'The Green Planet reveals the secret lives of plants in the same way The Blue Planet opened our eyes to the oceans' New Scientist There's something new under the sun Plants live secret, unseen lives - hidden in their magical world and on their timescale. From the richest jungles to the harshest deserts, from the snowiest alpine forest to the remotest steaming swamp, Green Planet travels from one great habitat to the next, showing us that plants are as aggressive, competitive and dramatic as the animals on our planet. You will discover agents of death, who ruthlessly engulf their host plant, but also those that form deep and complex relationships with other species, such as the desert cacti who use nectar-loving bats to pollinate. Although plants are undoubtedly the stars of the show, a fascinating new light will be shed on the animals that interact with them. Using the latest technologies and showcasing over two decades of new discoveries, Green Planet reveals the strange and wonderful life of plants like never before - a life full of remarkable behaviour, emotional stories and surprising heroes.