Product Description
This two-volume botany text is designed for all undergraduate courses in biology, botany and science. Volume one, "Plant Form and Function", covers basic biology, chemistry and genetics, while volume two, "Plant Diversity", encompasses plant evolution, diversity and ecology. ... Read more

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This is a comprehensive study of Leonardo in the dual role of artist/botanist. Culled from the enormous output of ideas and drawings in the many notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Emboden's monumental work presents an unexplored aspect of the Renaissance genius. Published at $34.95 Our last copies available at $17.49 ... Read more

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Did you know that the smell of sassafras blowing offshore convinced Columbus he was near land? Or that the American sycamore, which has the largest tree trunk in the eastern forest, can live for 500 to 600 years? Or that in the period before the American Revolution, patriots designated a sycamore tree in each colony as a "Liberty Tree" -- a meeting place for plotting against the British?

These facts are just a few of thousands you'll find inBotanica North America, an encyclopedia of the wonderfully diverse North American native plants by noted Canadian garden writer Marjorie Harris. This charming compendium is filled with more than 420 entries that provide essential information on each plant's physical attributes, natural history, common uses, and ethnobotany. There are also fascinating, often surprising anecdotes about plants you won't find anywhere else. From the Eastern forest to the desert, this beautifully written volume roves across the continent exploring how climate and plant life have affected, aided, and inspired us, from the first Native Americans to North Americans living in the twenty-first century: "The lonely majesty of a wind-swept jack pine has inspired generations of poets and painters," Harris writes. "These trees endure in spite of terrible weather . . . a jack pine forest has a dense, closed canopy with an understory of cherry, blueberry, hazels, bracken, and sweet fern along with trailing arbutus."

Comprehensive and engaging, Botanica North America is also filled with lush photographs of plants in their natural habitat and insightful quotes from a variety of gardening experts and amateurs, from naturalist Rachel Carson to famed conservationist John Muir.

Here is a reference no gardener or environmentalist should be without.

Customer Reviews (5)

A Delight in Every Way!
I am usually not impressed by "coffee table" books, but a few are much more than just pretty pictures. "Botanica North America" is just such a book.Well written by Canadian horticulturalist Marjorie Harris and lavishly illustrated with color photographs this is a delightful compendium of North American plant science and lore.The chapters are arranged primarily by region (with a few digressions) and a final chapter on the "Three Sisters"- Corn, beans and squash, plus a few other North American food plants.Each entry is readable independently of the others and each has some gems of information, plus occasional informed opinion by the author.None of the entries are dull in any way! In my examination I could find no major typos and almost every statement I checked out seemed to be accurate.

This is not in any way a guide for identification, but it is a delight to read and peruse!I recommend it to all people interested in botany and/or gardening.It is well worth the price.

A Delight for the Natural Historian
This book is a delightful ramble through a selection from the world of economically, historically, and medicinally important plants.As does a preceding reviewer, I dip into it frequently just for pleasure and to increase my general knowledge of how these plants have been useful to others, especially the indigenous population.It is NOT a guide to cultivation (William Cullina's wonderful pair of books on native plants offer that), or identification (Britton and Brown remains supreme), but a well-written survey of carefully chosen plants with interesting attributes other than their beauty, ease of cultivation or commercial availability.It's a book written by a plant lover for other plant lovers.

A Fitting Tribute to Our Native Plants
Botanica North America is a hefty tome at a little over 650 pages (and I?m guessing over 5 pounds), but the necessity of such a length is explained by the subtitle. Indeed, it would seem an overwhelming task to encapsulate in a book the history, botany, and traditional uses of North America?s native plants. Who would even dare try? We can thank Marjorie Harris.

For this comprehensive volume, this prolific and admired Canadian author sought information and opinions from hundreds of experts throughout North America. The acknowledgments alone are over three, packed pages long, so we know that Harris consulted thousands of knowledgeable individuals, and she collected photographs from among the most talented artists on the continent.

Throughout the book, Harris conveys a reverence for our natural world and the plants that inhabit it. She writes with an ecologist?s view, noting that ?If the point of this book is to honor native plants, it is also to honor their history, the secrets they have shared, the role they have played and must continue to play in the survival of our species. . . . We are the stewards of this land and if we do our best . . . to save as much of their habitat as possible, then we will be giving these plants the respect they deserve.?

To organize such a daunting task, Harris divided North America into the following regions: the Eastern Forests (covering the Northeast and Southeast); Swamps and Wetlands; Florida; The Boreal Forest; The Prairie; The Desert; California; Montane; The Tall Trees; and The Tundra.

The profile of each region begins with several pages of overview that introduce each area and capture its essence. Then Harris concentrates on the plants that are critical to the region and have been historically important to the human inhabitants. She organizes the plants by family, and each species she highlights is described through its botanical structure, ethnobotany, and natural history.

One feature I especially appreciate is this book?s ?browsability.? I can pick it up just to admire the photos if I wish. Or I can thumb through, picking up captivating quotes by nature writers and early explorers, from William Bartram to Walt Whitman. Or I can browse the plant descriptions, learning fascinating tidbits of information. I have always wondered why the blooms of bluebells turn from pink to blue as they mature ? now I know. And I learned that Native Americans used the dogwood as an ?indicator plant,? timing their planting of corn to the blooming of the tree.

I look forward to learning more about the secrets and history of our native plants as I continue to explore this extensively researched book. Botanica North America will not get stored on my bookshelf; rather it will stay at my fingertips, always ready to supply me with information or inspiration.

Botanica... Beautiful but not the most comprehensive
I bought Marjorie Harris' Botanica after reading gardening magazine reviews that this was the most comprehensive volume on native plants ever assembled.However I've already found about 6 native plants that I have that aren't listed and I'm sure there will be more as I make my way through the huge volume.That aside, the photography is very nice and the plant descriptions are thorough and informative.I especially liked how each of these plants were used by native peoples was included.This is definitely a keeper on my shelf but will be used as a companion with other books, rather than being the complete, one and only volume on native plants it claims to be.

Native plants in their glory
This book is a departure for Canada?s best-known garden writer. The reviews I?ve read tend to give the impression that it is a gardening book, but it?s more of a venture into history, geography, botany and enthobotany, than horticulture. Information that gardeners depend on, such as hardiness zones of plants, isn?t there, but that doesn?t mean gardeners won?t be fascinated by this extensive exploration of North American native plants.

The book offers photos and the stories of more than 420 plants?trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants?that grew in North America before Europeans arrived. The plants were selected because they are or were in some way valuable or important to people, whether native peoples or European settlers. At more than 650 pages, the book is extensive (it would have taken several volumes to encompass all the important plants). Still, there are some surprising omissions, for example, hickory, bitternut and pecan are included in the juglandaceae, but the ubiquitous black walnut isn?t.

Organized geographically, the book ranges from the eastern forests to Florida, from the boreal forest to the prairies, the southern deserts to California and the Pacific Northwest. The northern tundra is included, as well as a chapter on the ?three sisters?, the agricultural plants aboriginal peoples cultivated, corn, squash and beans.

Lush photographs accompany many of the entries, which provide essential information on each plant?s attributes and historical uses. Harris includes stories and quotations from early European plant enthusiasts who often courted hardship and danger to learn as much as they could about the new plants they were encountering. Many compelling stories come from these early observers and amateur botanists. Unfortunately, the publisher chose only to index plant names (common and botanical), and not the names of people. For example, I was hoping to find reference to Catharine Parr Traill, the sister of Susanna Moody (of Roughing it in the Bush fame), and the author of Canadian Wild Flowers (1868). As early as the mid-nineteenth century, Parr Traill regretted the almost wholesale destruction of the Canadian wilderness and its plants due to the onslaught of farmers clearing the land for crops and loggers harvesting timbers to ship to eager markets in Europe. Parr Traill is, in fact, quotedseveral times, but you won?t find her name in the index. Notesfor each chapter do detail sources, but an alphabetical index would have made these names so much easier to find.

Botanica North America isn?t a book you can read from cover to cover quickly?instead it?s one to keep on the coffee table or at the bedside table to savor and dip into over many weeks. Harris brings to our attention the enormous variability and richness of the North American landscape. One can?t help but come away with a sense of regret over how much was destroyed, both deliberately and by accident (and still is being ruined today as suburban sprawl continues to eat up the landscape). Fortunately, awareness of native plants is on the upswing, and this book certainly marks a welcome contribution to the current revival of interest in these magnificent and under appreciated plants. Bravo, Marjorie Harris! ... Read more

Product Description
Pyramid Books X-1091. "A lusty adventure of strong men and their women by the authors of Mutiny on the Bounty." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"Sundowner"
I got on a "re-read Nordhoff & Hall" kick recently and decided to write a rewiew on another one of my N/H favorites of long ago, "Botany Bay".It is a most excellent book, well worth recommending as solid, captivating literature.One of the main features of this book is it's historical accuracy woven carefully into a novel about fictional people who played the parts of non-fictional history in what is surely a captivating story.

"Botany Bay" concerns the colonization of Austrialia, but what is different about this "pilgrimage" is the type of immigrants that undertook the effort; hardly the same kind that we read about in American History. When one thinks of colonization, an image comes to mind of people seeking a better life of their own volution, such as those that came across on the Mayflower or who moved West on covered wagon trains.These newcomers were not going there because they wanted to; they were going because England had decided the best way to clean out Newgate Prison was to send the prisoners to the new land of Australia that was badly in need of such a population.A motley crew they were - and while some were simply petty criminals or merely debtors that had been victimized by England's strict financial code of ethics, there were also convicts convicted of more serious crimes, thieves and murderers, prostitutes and all the rest of a population that had existed on the fringes of society and finally made their way into Newgate.

Thrown together with little distinction between the classes of crime, they were banished to the "land down under". The story itself is an accounting of all of the above as we follow them while they were herded aboard the ships that set sail for the shores of Australia; but centers around a cast of mostly honorable characters that were there under unusual circumstances, including one good hearted woman whose only crime amounted to "guilt by association". The one man who landed all of them in a peck of trouble was a charismatic highwayman who practiced his craft until it practiced him and those unfortunate enough to be connected to him.In carefully choosing these types of people to form the basis of the tale, it clearly demonstrated a system that lumped all types of indiscretions into one giant category that ultimately ended in filling the English prisons to overflowing.

There isn't a dull moment, as one might imagine, in setting off with such a gathering and reading about them all the way across the sea, foibles and all.The trip itself, the mishmash of the landing, when every type of human form was unleashed, free at last and running amok everywhere;the frustrating attempts to bring law and order to these outlaws by the long-suffering Captain Bligh-type sea captains entrusted with the same task that had failed miserably on the home soil.

Somehow, the colonization was a success as evidenced today, proving that there is hope for salvation in different forms if enough patience and tenacity is practiced. But on the other side of the same coin, the ending is one that will make the reader pause in sorrow. ... Read more

Product Description
First published in 1988, Sara Stein's unique book explores the traditional garden. The author discusses the history, behavior, reproductive habits, and anatomy of the most common weeds--a problem every gardener encounters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

My Weeds
Sara Stein shares her amazing in-depth knowlege of the botany of weeds with a sense of humor that makes this book a "I can't put it down" volume.

great book
I love this book.I am amazed by her depth of knowledge.Plus it's a good read.I am re-reading it now, keeping it by my bedside to read a few paragraphs each night.Such a wealth of knowledge.

I am so bummed that this is out of print
I first read this a year or so ago and just loved it.This book gave me an even greater appreciation for the intelligence of plants, their adaptability, and the information we can gain from the presence of certainweeds if we know what we are looking at.The author talks about herongoing struggle with the weeds that inhabit her gardening space.Thereare no winners or losers in this war, but a definate relationship iscreated between the two.

This book is very enjoyable to read as well asbeing full of great, and accurate, information.

wonderful to read and botanically accurate
This book will delight any and all who have done or will do battle with weeds. Mrs. Stein has a delightful style that is warm and personable.Her research was excellent and the reader will discover much about the secret lives of these much maligned plants. Anyone that is thinking about startinga garden should read this book ... Read more

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In Sweden and Britain, imperial powers both, Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks ruled over their own small scientific empires, promoting botanical exploration to justify the exploitation of territories, peoples, and natural resources. This book explores the entwined destinies of these two men and how their influence served both science and empire.

Customer Reviews (2)

Linnaeus' tercentenary
May 23rd will be the 300th anniversary of Carl Linnaeus' birth so I purchased this little book to become familiar with him and to honor his memory. However this book is more about Banks than Linnaeus, altho' Banks did much to promote Linnaeus' system of classification not only in England but thru-out the world. In some ways, Banks was to Linnaeus what Huxley was to Darwin and Bateson was to Mendel. Not only did Linnaeus and Banks promote science (and themselves), but they promoted their respective country's agricultural economy before the Industrial Revolution. Yet both men were largely forgotten soon after their deaths.

In large part the successful promotion of Linnaeus' system was due to his use of animal genitalia (in an uptight society) as an analogy to describe the reproductive organs of plants and as the basis for naming and classifying them. Add to that, Banks' well-known promiscuity while in Tahiti on Captain Cook's first voyage there (to record the Transit of Venus) and you have a sure-fire salacious combination (sex sells!).

Fara also describes how the English used scientific exploration as a cover for colonization which they justified in the belief that Europeans were a superior race and must help the other races. Both Linnaeus and Banks brought in non-native plants and tried to adapt them to their countries but Banks was far more successful. Indeed Banks had plants and animals transplanted from one colony to another fairly successfully.

So eventho' I bought the book for Linnaeus, the inclusion of Banks rounds out the story. While Wikipedia has more facts on Linnaeus it has less of the personal. I gave the book only four stars because Fara doesn't include an index, tho' Amazon's `Search Inside' feature provided an alternative.

Read this for a science project
Carl Linnaeus was responsible for revolutionizing the way modern science classifies and organizes all living organisms. His simple system based on the sexual characteristics of plants shocked society and inspired other scientists including Joseph Banks, whose voyages around the world to find and classify new organisms included an interesting array of sexual exploits with the natives he came across. In her novel, Patricia Fara presents a solid and well supported thesis on how botany contributed and was inexplicably tied into the imperialism of European society, most especially the British Empire.

This book is a quick read and not overly bogged down with the intricacies of scientific classification. It presents the story of Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks's enormous contributions to the beginnings of modern classification while discussing the political, social, and economic incentives behind their science. Patricia Fara has written several other books concerning Enlightenment era science and this book is a prime example of her ability and specialty in tying in the role of science as a part of society and government in the 18th and 19th centuries. I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in biology or botany as well as anyone interested in the workings of early modern science and their place in the development of modern English society. ... Read more

Product Description
An introduction to the botanical richness of one of southern California s major waterways The Santa Ana River is the largest watercourse in the heavily populated coastal plain of southern California. Despite the encroachment of urban development, however, the river and its environs are home to over eight hundred plant species. In this seminal guide to the flora of the Santa Ana River, Oscar F. Clarke and his team have compiled descriptions of three hundred species, accompanied by 3,200 images and illustrations. The book also serves as an introduction to basic botanical concepts, applying phylogenetics the study of evolutionary relationships between species to taxonomic structure. Surprising connections emerge with an understanding of the relationships between these plants, as well as between the trees, flowers, and other types of flora in all regions of the world. The culmination of a lifetime of botanical study, this guide is a must-have for anyone interested in learning more about green, growing things. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Flora of Santa Ana River
A most useful book for all of S. California.One of my favorite books.I use it a lot for detailed info and good pictures.

Beautiful and informative
It's beautiful and well researched.The photos are fantastic.Personally, I prefer a dichotomous key, but this will be very helpful for academic and lay users both, equally.This book will likely be useful to anyone interested in plants in southern California, because it covers most of the species that are typical of the entire region.The Santa Ana runs through most all of the primary biozones of the region, so the book ends up covering most all of the typical plants of the area.

It's just a little too big for the pocket, but it's small enough for the daypack.Owning most all of the lay and academic texts on plants of the region, I think this is one of the most useful, appealing, and accessible.It is easy to use without sacrificing or fudging the botanical information.I highly recommend it for most users interested in Western Riverside and Orange counties, as well as Los Angeles and western San Diego county.It will be less useful for desert region identification.

If you are are looking for a portable dichotomous key, try the flora of San Diego county.Even if you are outside San Diego county, it will only be missing a few species.Then again, if you are a botanist seeking a technical manual, you probably know this already.

If you are just interested in plants, this one is excellent, and it has enough technical information in it that it will still be useful as your knowledge grows.

For beginners and others. Beautiful.
Oscar Clarke's book on the Santa Ana River has a very special meaning for Southern California. It illustrates the surprising and beautiful results from imported water. The most dramatic demonstration is in the Santa Ana River. Superficially the Santa Ana doesn't appear to be such a great river. But that is because most of the flow is underground. And much of that water was imported. Users along the course pass the used water to the soil beneath them, and it joins the flow.

The result is a springtime display (and year-round too) of water-loving plants, and drier species on the slopes above. The magic of imported water brings back the floristic beauty that we might have supposed was lost with the "development" of Southern California. Of course we also get species that were considered alien, but many of them are beautiful too.

Oscar's easy and natural approach to evolution-based systematics is described on Page 5. He tells how to remember the series: kingdom, phylum, order, family, genus, species. For the huge Sunflower family, this series is not sufficient to bring order, and the family is divided into 14 tribes (as listed on Page 355) before dividing further into genus and species.

Oscar's description of tribes in the Sunflower family appears to be a traditional listing, similar to that in Munz, P.A. "A Manual of Southern California Botany" (1935), referenced by Oscar. But there has been some moving of particular genera to different tribes, some merging of tribes, some name updates, and the addition of two tribes from Africa, including that of the Freeway Daisy.

Getting technical for a moment, I can remark that the division into tribes is imperfect, with overlaps and uncertainties due to the contrary effects of speciation and evolutionary convergence. More recent floras such as the encyclopedic and authoritative 1993 Jepson Manual attempt to improve upon the tribes with newly constructed "groups", but I think the imperfection remains.

The book is an easy introduction to flower hunting for beginners. But those who have lists of flowers from past jaunts, and would like to recall pleasant memories, can also use it. There can be confidence that nearly every species along the Santa Ana River is included.

Brilliant and not limited to the Santa Ana River
This is, by far, the best book I've ever seen on botany with incredible pictures, phenominal keys, and a useful description of the plants that puts them in a perspective that helps the reader to understand how these plants fit into the rest of the planet's botany.

The authors' understanding of botany is exceptional.

The title of the book might limit its audience but botanical professionals and novices alike will find this book extremely useful and engaging. ... Read more

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Mangroves are remarkable tropical plants that grow with their roots partly or wholly submerged in sea water. They make tidal forests in the tropics, and these forests, referred to as "mangal," straddle the abrupt interphase between sea and land. They are economically important because they are a source of timber (used mainly as firewood).Mangroves also protect shorelines from wave damage and provide a nursery for many commercial fishes. To the scientist they offer an interesting opportunity to study organisms that adapt to both marine and terrestrial environments. The Botany of Mangroves is a concise, descriptive overview of mangrove plants, with emphasis on the biology of individual species. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Originally published in 1870.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Complimenting Exploring Creation with Botany, the Botany Notebooking Journal will provide everything your students need to complete their Botany studies. The Notebooking Journal serves as your child's individual notebook, providing a place for them to complete every assignment in the book, including the notebook activities, nature hunts and walks, specimen collections and much, much more. These Notebooking Journals are a perfect compliment to Exploring Creation with Botany. Each student will cherish their individual notebook as they make it their very own with words and illustrations reflecting all they have learned in their pursuit of astronomy. Additionally, it serves as your record of your student's scientific endeavors throughout the year. When your child flips through their notebook, they will be reminded of the knowledge they have attained, reviewing the material as they peruse the pages they have created. ... Read more

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"In Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, Shteir weaves intriguing biographies of women botanists into her intricate account of Victorian culture, science, and society. This elegant book is essential reading for anyone interested in plants and science." -- Londa Schiebinger, Nature

In Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science, Ann B. Shteir explores the contributions of women to the field of botany before and after the dawn of the Victorian Age. She shows how ideas during the eighteenth century about botany as a leisure activity for self-improvement and a "feminine" pursuit gave women unprecedented opportunities to publish their findings and views. By the 1830s, however, botany came to be regarded as a professional activity for specialists and experts -- and women's contributions to the field of botany as authors and teachers were viewed as problematic. Shteir focuses on John Lindley, whose determination to form distinctions between polite botany -- what he called "amusement for the ladies" -- and botanical science -- "an occupation for the serious thoughts of man" -- illustrates how the contributions of women were minimized in the social history of science. Despite such efforts, women continued to participate avidly in botanical activities at home and abroad, especially by writing for other women, children, and general readers.

At a time of great interest in the role of women in science, this absorbing, interdisciplinary book provides a new perspective on gender issues in the history of science. Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science rediscovers the resourceful women who used their pens for their own social, economic, and intellectual purposes.

"Her lively assortment of women speaks to the diversity of a scientific world in some ways more pervasive of everyday society than our own, and... a complex ecology of women in science."--Abigail Lustig, William and Mary Quarterly

"Shteir's book bears reading and rereading, not merely because it is filled with a wide array of detail, but because it attempts to suggest a texture of women's lives in the nineteenth century that is far too poorly known."--Alan Rauch, Nineteenth Century Studies

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Product Description
A revised edition of the widely used undergraduate text for the one-semester or one-quarter introductory course.Offers a balanced, concise introduction to all aspects of botany including the form, function, and evolution of plants and fungi. Includes a new chapter on genetics, a complete revision of the classification section using modern classification systems, and a general updating throughout. ... Read more