About this item
In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab.In Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounted with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing lessons she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis.In A Garden of Marvels, she extends the story. Frustrated by plants that fail to thrive, she sets out to understand the basics of botany in order to become a better gardener. She retraces the progress of the first botanists who banished myths and misunderstandings and discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, roots choose their food, and hormones make morning glories climb fence posts. She also visits modern gardens, farms, and labs to discover the science behind extraordinary plants like one-ton pumpkins, a truly black petunia, a biofuel grass that grows twelve feet tall, and the world's only photosynthesizing animal. Transferring her insights to her own garden, she nurtures a "cocktail" tree that bears five kinds of fruit, cures a Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi, and gets a tree to text her when it's thirsty.Intertwining personal anecdote, accessible science, and untold history, the ever-engaging author takes us on an eye-opening journey into her garden - and yours.
About the Author
I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and, after graduating from Yale and Johns Hopkins, moved to the Washington, DC area. I've written three books for an adult audience (Slime, A Garden of Marvels, and Paradise Under Glass) and seven books for young adults, including hands-on science books titled Reinvent the Wheel and Build a Better Mousetrap. My articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Boston Globe, among others. You can hear me in interviews at Science Friday on NPR, WICN, and other radio shows and podcasts.I currently live in Bethesda, Maryland with my husband.
