Hi everyone, I'm Claire, and I'm back for Brilliant Botany episode two with some summer
reading recommendations from some of my favorite botany-related books.
Now for my first recommendation, I couldn't pick one of Amy Stewart's books, so I have
three of them.
Amy Stewart is a science writer who typically writes about plants--she also has a book Wicked
Bugs which I don't own because I'm more of a plant person--but the first of these is
Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart, which is a really great, it's almost like a reference, you could
definitely read it through, but it's basically a history of plant poisons, and their different
uses.
Ranging from food, to weapons, to famous people who have died, all sorts of things.
And it's actually a really gorgeous book.
It's a really nice hardback.
I'm a book geek so I really like it for that.
And it has really great illustrations.
The second of these is, the first one I read by her, is Flower Confidential and this is
the good, the bad and the beautiful of the cut flower industry around the world.
It talks about breeding blue roses, breeding the Stargazer Lily, which I mentioned in my
last video, how roses are cultivated and shipped from Ecuador, Guatamala, all around the world.
It's super interesting, super well-written, it's more of a narrative than a science book
which is something that I really love about it.
The third of these is The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart, her newest book, and similar
to Wicked Plants it's a really gorgeous hardback with great illustrations.
And it is little anecdotes, and each chapter or section is a different plant and how alcohol
is derived from it.
So it's basically any alcohol you can think of is in here with back stories.
Fruitless Fall by Rowan Jacobsen, the collapse of the honey bee and the coming agricultural
crisis.
It was published in 2008, so it's a little bit outdated in terms of talking about colony
collapse disorder, the disease or condition that was striking all of the world's--or at
least the United States'--bees a couple of years ago.
It is a very great book if you want to learn about how bees work and communication and
hives; it's very great.
As you can see, I have lots of post-it notes in it, because plants and bees, both very
important.
This is one of my absolute favorite books, The Wild Trees by Richard Preston.
It's about Coastal Redwood research in Northern California and how that started within the
last couple of decades.
And the men and women who started that area of research.
One of the first researchers, Steve Sillett, free-climbed into a redwood canopy without
any gear just to stand in the crown of a redwood, and it's believed that he was one of, or the
first man to stand in the crown of a redwood tree.
This is more of a practical recommendation, this is Newcomb's Wildflower Guide, mostly
based in Northeastern America, I'm sure it reaches up a little bit into Canada.
It's what I've used in my plant systematics courses to identify plants.
It's a really great, easy-to-use guide, so even if you aren't a botanist and don't know
that much about plants, you can use it to identify stuff in your area.
You basically need to be able to tell how many petals a plant has, how its leaves are
arranged, which will be explained to you in the book, and what shape those leaves are,
also explained to you in the book in terms of options.
And then it leads you through questions, so you figure out using pictures and descriptions
what plant it is you're looking at.
And there you have it, some summer reading recommendations if, like me, you have some
down time right now.
And if there's a particular topic you're looking for a book on, drop a note in the comments
and I'll see if I can come up with a recommendation for you.
Similarly, if you have any botany-related questions leave those in the comments and
I'll answer them in a future video.