Botany
The North American fruit tree that provides a model for economics
Bound in a web of connectivity, the serviceberry produces sufficient food for humans and other animals, and is an outstanding example of wealth consisting in ‘having enough to share’
What we owe to the self-taught genius Carl Linnaeus
Bumptious, uncouth and the despair of his schoolmasters, Linnaeus died almost forgotten. Yet he established a system of taxonomy that we still use two centuries later
The world’s largest flower is also its ugliest
Known as ‘corpse flower’, the sinister Rafflesia resembles slabs of bloody, white-flecked meat, emits the scent of rotting flesh and eventually subsides into a mass of black slime
The best of this year’s gardening books
Authors reviewed include Jinny Blom on design, Jenny Joseph on scented plants, Maury C. Flannery on herbaria and Francis Pryor on his Fenland haven
In search of the peripatetic philosopher Theophrastus
Publishers lately seem to have got the idea that otherwise uncommercial subjects might be rendered sexy if presented with a…
We could all once tell bird’s-foot trefoil from rosebay willowherb
‘There are a great many ways of holding on to our sanity amid the vices and follies of the world,’…
A guide to the apothecary’s garden
On 23 May 1804, two months before his daughter’s wedding, John Coakley Lettsom threw open his estate in Camberwell. Some…
Every page of this astonishingly beautiful ode to the citrus is a treat
Laura Freeman is transported by J.C. Volkamer’s astonishingly beautiful ode to the citrus
Flower power: symbols of romance and revolution
Critics have argued over the meaning of the great golden flower head to which Van Dyck points in his ‘Self-Portrait…
The forgotten masterpieces of Indian art
As late as the end of the 18th century, only a handful of Europeans had ever seen the legendary Mughal…
Hunt the lady’s slipper
Who would want to read a whole book about a teenage boy’s gap year? When most 18-year-olds take time off…
Nothing is quite what it seems
One day, somebody will stage an exhibition of artists taught at the Slade by the formidable Henry Tonks, who considered…
Seeds of a mystery in a great-aunt’s will
There is something cruelly beautiful, delightfully frustrating and filthily gorgeous about a Scarlett Thomas novel. Two family trees open and…
Warning: the beautiful trees in this book may very soon be extinct
John Evelyn (1620–1706) was not only a diarist. He was one of the most learned men of his time: traveller,…
Germaine Greer's mad, passionate quest to heal Australia
Like an old woman in a fairy story, Germaine Greer, now in her late seventies, has taken to lurking in…
Pine by Laura Mason; Lily, by Marcia Reiss - review
After the success of their animal series of monographs, Reaktion Books have had the clever idea of doing something similar…
