In Praise Of Plants [Paperback]

What do we know about plants, really? Through a rich array of examples, many illustrated in the author's elegant and distinctive style, this book offers a new look at botany. This scholarly yet fun book examines the qualities that make plants unique, so different from animals. Experienced in both the academic and in-the-field sides of science, the opinionated Hallé delightfully makes the case that plants differ so profoundly from animals that questions are raised about the meaning of individuality and the nature of life and death.

This book is only available through print on demand. All interior art is black and white.

Francis Halle is a professor of botany at the University of Montpellier, France. A previous book,Tropical Trees and Forests: An Architectural Analysis(1978), coauthored with Roelof Oldeman and Barry Tomlinson, is one of the most frequently consulted in tropical botany. Professor Halle is a pioneer in exploring life in the treetops of tropical forests, using a blimp-borne inflatable raft that rests on the tops of the trees of the canopy.

Replacing elephant ivory with vegetable ivory has been presented as an environmental victory. However, who is concerned about the bleak future for the palms that provide the vegetable ivory, the strangePhytelephasof the understory in the western Amazonian rain forest, whose existence is threatened by the destruction of the last primary forests at the foot of the Andes? Would we prefer to see palms vanish rather than elephants?

At the supermarket I found a shampoo , 'Pure, natural, with essential oils of sage and juniper berry, chamomile, orange and wood rose.' The label stated nicely, 'This product was not tested on animals.' Why do we have a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals but not one for prevention of cruelty to plants? Why do we have leagues against vivisection but do not protect plane trees against pollarding by arborists?

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