


Paperback
Published: 22nd October 1991
ISBN: 9780253206626
Number Of Pages: 276
"Even a diehard urbanite would likely be seduced by this extraordinary chronicle of the plant kingdom... " -- Publishers Weekly
..". much more than the fascinating story of plant life... It is also a book about the resilience of life itself, the mystery and power of the unseen energy appearing in the visible world in a marvelous variety of forms." -- Audubon Naturalist News
"Here is Mr. Peattie at his superb best.... H]e makes the story of botany and its pursuit as fascinating to the reader as it is to him, and the reading of it a delight." -- Hartford Times
" Peattie] belongs with Gilbert White, Thoreau, John Burroughs, W. H. Hudson, Richard Jeffries, and John Muir." -- Mark van Doren
First published in 1939, this beautifully imaginative book is about botany much in the same sense that Walden is about a pond. Part natural history, part biography, and part philosophical reflection, Flowering Earth is written in a warm, lyrical style that made poet-scientist Donald Culross Peattie one of America's best-known naturalist writers.
The evolution of plant life could be handled by nobody else than Peattie in such a way as to make it fascinating even to the neophyte. Glimpses into a strange new world, whole passages that are beyond one's depth, unless it is familiar territory, but with other passages so rewarding that it is worth the venture. He makes one share his own sense of adventure, and his chapter on the Coastal sequoias and the Big Trees of the Sierra Nevadas is memorable. Peattie has an inimitable style; he weaves his philosophy into his scholarship. This is not a book for everyone, but it deserves the appreciative attention of those who loved An Almanac for Moderns. But its real sale will be to naturalists, botanists and those to whom the way of the plant world is known territory. (Kirkus Reviews)
Foreword | |
On Striking Your Roots | |
On Branching Out | |
Chlorophyll: the Sun TrapIV. What a Plant Is | |
Protoplasm--the Body of Life | |
The Seeds of Life | |
The First Algas | |
The Seaweeds | |
The Fern Forests | |
Diatoms-Grass of the Sea | |
Conifers and Cycads | |
The Rise of the Modern Floras | |
A Transplanting | |
A Garden Alliance | |
The Moment of Flowering | |
The Sleep of the Seed | |
Growth | |
The Web of Life | |
Afterword | |
Index | |
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved. |
ISBN: 9780253206626
ISBN-10: 0253206626
Audience:
Professional
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 276
Published: 22nd October 1991
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Country of Publication: US
Dimensions (cm): 20.32 x 13.97
x 1.91
Weight (kg): 0.34