Green: The Story of Plant Life on Our Planet [Hardcover]

Take a lively look at the biology of plants on Earth—and their vast importance to our planet—with this wide-ranging exploration from an award-winning team.

This tree doesn’t look like it’s doing very much.
It just stands there in the sunlight,
big and GREEN.
But in fact, this tree is busy . . .

On land and in the seas, green plants make the oxygen and food that many living things—including us—need to survive. Covering the evolution of the first plants billions of years ago, the secret, microscopic workings of trees and leaves today, and the role of plants in both creating fossil fuels and combating climate change, this book is a lush and fascinating introduction to the science of plants that goes well beyond photosynthesis. Nicola Davies and Emily Sutton, the acclaimed team behind Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes, Many: The Diversity of Life on Earth, and Grow: Secrets of Our DNA, have crafted a hopeful exploration of green life that will encourage readers to treasure the flora of Earth’s many ecosystems.The meaning of “green” is creatively expanded from the color we associate with plants to encompass the process of photosynthesis and the components of plant cells in which it takes place. . . . Sutton’s lush illustrations, naturally featuring many shades of green, fill the pages with tendrils, roots, and leaves at macro and micro scales and portray ecosystems on land and water throughout Earth’s history as teeming with plants and animals.
—The Horn Book

A cogent reminder of the significance of plants, for oxygen breathers of all species.
—Kirkus Reviews

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