Synopses & Reviews
Green plants are all around us. We are totally dependent on them for food; we cultivate them for our pleasure; and we use them to our advantage in a vast number of ways. This is a lively, nontechnical account of how green plants live, grow and...reach for the sun. It covers everything you need or want to know about plants, including how plants satisfy their nutritional and energy needs, how they direct and promote their growth, development and death, and how they react to the daily and seasonal variations and stresses in their environments. Finally, the author describes how they attract and repel other living organisms and how we exploit them for our own use in food and medicine. From their ability to take energy from sunlight to make their own food to their amazing range of life-sustaining, death-defying strategies, John King explains why plants dominate our planet. This is not just a book for avid gardeners and naturalists. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand why the earth is green.
Synopsis
Written in a stylish and accessible way, this book answers your questions about how plants work.
Synopsis
Green plants are all around us. We are totally dependent on them for food; we cultivate them for our pleasure; and we have used them in a vast number of ways down the centuries. But have you ever wondered how plants work? Where do trees get the material to make wood? How does a bulb 'know' to sprout in the spring? Why are flowers different colours? This book answers these questions in a charming and accessible way. This is not just a book for keen gardeners and naturalists. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand why the earth is green.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [217]-220) and index.
Table of Contents
Preface; 1. Plants are cool, but why?; 2. Photosynthesis: the leitmotiv of life; 3. Respiration: breathing without lungs; 4. Nitrogen, nitrogen, everywhere ... ; 5. Nutrition for the healthy lifestyle; 6. Transport of delights; 7. Growth: the long and short of it; 8. The time of their lives; 9. A dash of seasoning; 10. Dormancy: a matter of survival; 11. Stressful tranquility; 12. The colourful world of plants; 13. Fragrance and flavour; 14. Chemical warfare; 15. Not in my back yard!; 16. Cornu copiae: the horn of plenty; 17. Getting dead; Epilogue; Bibliography.