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A review by amandar9fa2f
The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination by Richard Mabey
4.0
An entrancing, accessible and thought-provoking exploration of the plant world.
Each chapter focuses on a different species, growth habit, method of pollination, or habitat. Mabey touches on mythology, pre-history, literature, art, and the great plant hunters of the 18th and 19th centuries. While he makes passing reference to historical science in Newton’s apple, don’t expect plant science in anger.
In his theme of our relationship with plants, Mabey discusses the celebrity of trees, the Green Man, the cure-all Ginseng, Wordsworth, the hunt for the elusive Moonflower, as well as...
Over the course of the book, the chapters draw together as a paean to the diversity of plants. Together, they present 'the newly realised face of the once supposedly passive vegetable world.' Ultimately, this serves to underscore the interconnectedness and fragility of the ecosystem.
With prose that is as vivid as it is erudite, Mabey strikes a balance between engaging alike the layperson and the plant scientist: the hallmark of a great nature writer.
Each chapter focuses on a different species, growth habit, method of pollination, or habitat. Mabey touches on mythology, pre-history, literature, art, and the great plant hunters of the 18th and 19th centuries. While he makes passing reference to historical science in Newton’s apple, don’t expect plant science in anger.
In his theme of our relationship with plants, Mabey discusses the celebrity of trees, the Green Man, the cure-all Ginseng, Wordsworth, the hunt for the elusive Moonflower, as well as...
'passionflowers with their own pesticides, yew trees morphing their aerial roots into trunks, carnivorous species with the powers of muscled animals, orchids mimicking insect pheromones, arums able to raise their internal temperature.'
Over the course of the book, the chapters draw together as a paean to the diversity of plants. Together, they present 'the newly realised face of the once supposedly passive vegetable world.' Ultimately, this serves to underscore the interconnectedness and fragility of the ecosystem.
With prose that is as vivid as it is erudite, Mabey strikes a balance between engaging alike the layperson and the plant scientist: the hallmark of a great nature writer.