Download or read book Plants Patients and the Historians written by Paolo Palladino and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents

Download or read book Potted History written by Catherine Horwood and published by White Lion Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are plenty of books on how to look after houseplants but no one has shown us how, when and why these plants came to be found in our homes. In this fascinating book we learn how potted plants are as subject to fashion as pieces of furniture. For the Victorians it was the aspidistra in the front parlor; for us it is the orchid in the designer loft. We find that Wedgwood created a market for special bulb pots and that some of Conran's early designs were for houseplant containers. Then there is the story of mignonette - a modest plant but once prized in every home for its intoxicating scent. Now that scent is lost to us for ever. Catherine Horwood's novel combination of social history, plant history and the history of interior design is intriguing. Her illustrations come from a variety of unusual sources since potted plants may be found in many unexpected corners.

Download or read book Fifty Plants That Changed the Course of History written by Bill Laws and published by Firefly Books. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating stories of the plants that changed civilizations.

Download or read book Herbarium written by Barbara M. Thiers and published by Timber Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A treasury like no other Since the 1500s, scientists have documented the plants and fungi that grew around them, organizing the specimens into collections. Known as herbaria, these archives helped give rise to botany as its own scientific endeavor. Herbarium is a fascinating enquiry into this unique field of plant biology, exploring how herbaria emerged and have changed over time, who promoted and contributed to them, and why they remain such an important source of data for their new role: understanding how the world’s flora is changing. Barbara Thiers, director of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden, also explains how recent innovations that allow us to see things at both the molecular level and on a global scale can be applied to herbaria specimens, helping us address some of the most critical problems facing the world today. At its heart, Herbarium is a compelling reminder of one of humanity’s better impulses: to save things—not just for ourselves, but for generations to come.

Download or read book Ten Drugs written by Thomas Hager and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The stories are skillfully told and entirely entertaining . . . An expert, mostly feel-good book about modern medicine” from the award-winning author (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Behind every landmark drug is a story. It could be an oddball researcher’s genius insight, a catalyzing moment in geopolitical history, a new breakthrough technology, or an unexpected but welcome side effect discovered during clinical trials. Piece together these stories, as Thomas Hager does in this remarkable, century-spanning history, and you can trace the evolution of our culture and the practice of medicine. Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book. “[An] absorbing new book.” —The New York Times Book Review “[A] well-written and engaging chronicle.” —The Wall Street Journal “Lucidly informative and compulsively readable.” —Publishers Weekly “Entertaining [and] insightful.” —Booklist “Well-written, well-researched and fascinating to read Ten Drugs provides an insightful look at how drugs have shaped modern medical practices. Towards the end of the book Hager writes that he ‘came away surprised by some of the things he had learned.’ I had the very same reaction.” —Penny Le Couteur, coauthor of Napoleon’s Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History

Download or read book The Cultural History of Plants written by Sir Ghillean Prance and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This valuable reference will be useful for both scholars and general readers. It is both botanical and cultural, describing the role of plant in social life, regional customs, the arts, natural and covers all aspects of plant cultivation and migration and covers all aspects of plant cultivation and migration. The text includes an explanation of plant names and a list of general references on the history of useful plants.

Download or read book Plants in Garden History written by Penelope Hobhouse and published by Pavilion Books, Limited. This book was released on 1997-09 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The History of the World in 100 Plants written by Simon Barnes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-10-27 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The History of the World in 100 Animals, a BBC Radio Four Book of the Week, comes an inspirational new book that looks at the 100 plants that have had the greatest impact on humanity, stunningly illustrated throughout. As humans, we hold the planet in the palms of ours hands. But we still consume the energy of the sun in the form of food. The sun is available for consumption because of plants. Plants make food from the sun by the process of photosynthesis; nothing else in the world can do this. We eat plants, or we do so at second hand, by eating the eaters of plants. Plants give us food. Plants take in carbon dioxide and push out oxygen: they give us the air we breathe, direct the rain that falls and moderate the climate. Plants also give us shelter, beauty, comfort, meaning, buildings, boats, containers, musical instruments, medicines and religious symbols. We use flowers for love, we use flowers for death. The fossils of plants power our industries and our transport. Across history we have used plants to store knowledge, to kill, to fuel wars, to change our state of consciousness, to indicate our status. The first gun was a plant, we got fire from plants, we have enslaved people for the sake of plants. We humans like to see ourselves as a species that has risen above the animal kingdom, doing what we will with the world. But we couldn’t live for a day without plants. Our past is all about plants, our present is all tied up with plants; and without plants there is no future. From the mighty oak to algae, from cotton to coca here are a hundred reasons why.

Download or read book The Emerald Planet written by David Beerling and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plants have profoundly moulded the Earth's climate and the evolutionary trajectory of life. Far from being 'silent witnesses to the passage of time', plants are dynamic components of our world, shaping the environment throughout history as much as that environment has shaped them. In The Emerald Planet, David Beerling puts plants centre stage, revealing the crucial role they have played in driving global changes in the environment, in recording hidden facets of Earth's history, and in helping us to predict its future. His account draws together evidence from fossil plants, from experiments with their living counterparts, and from computer models of the 'Earth System', to illuminate the history of our planet and its biodiversity. This new approach reveals how plummeting carbon dioxide levels removed a barrier to the evolution of the leaf; how plants played a starring role in pushing oxygen levels upwards, allowing spectacular giant insects to thrive in the Carboniferous; and it strengthens fascinating and contentious fossil evidence for an ancient hole in the ozone layer. Along the way, Beerling introduces a lively cast of pioneering scientists from Victorian times onwards whose discoveries provided the crucial background to these and the other puzzles. This understanding of our planet's past sheds a sobering light on our own climate-changing activities, and offers clues to what our climatic and ecological futures might look like. There could be no more important time to take a close look at plants, and to understand the history of the world through the stories they tell. Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.

Download or read book Early Uses of California Plants written by Edward K. Balls and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1962 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Information from many sources has been compiled here to present the most important uses of plants by early inhabitants of California, as well as methods of preparing the plants for use. The Indian method of leaching acorn meal so it could be eaten, the medicinal value of Yerba Mansa, the use of other plants for making baskets, rope, and clothing, are some of the subjects treated.

Download or read book Hybrid written by Noel Kingsbury and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Noel Kingsbury reveals that even those imaginary perfect foods are themselves far from anything that could properly be called natural, rather, they represent the end of a millennia-long history of selective breeding and hybridization. Starting his story at the birth of agriculture, Kingsbury traces the history of human attempts to make plants more reliable, productive, and nutritiousa story that owes as much to accident and error as to innovation and experiment. Drawing on historical and scientific accounts, as well as a rich trove of anecdotes, Kingsbury shows how scientists, amateur breeders, and countless anonymous farmers and gardeners slowly caused the evolutionary pressures of nature to be supplanted by those of human needs and thus led us from sparse wild grasses to succulent corn cobs, and from mealy, white wild carrots to the juicy vegetables we enjoy today. At the same time, Kingsbury reminds us that contemporary controversies over the Green Revolution and genetically modified crops are not new, plant breeding has always had a political dimension."--Publisher's description.

Download or read book Plants Go to War written by Judith Sumner and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the first botanical history of World War II, Plants Go to War examines military history from the perspective of plant science. From victory gardens to drugs, timber, rubber, and fibers, plants supplied materials with key roles in victory. Vegetables provided the wartime diet both in North America and Europe, where vitamin-rich carrots, cabbages, and potatoes nourished millions. Chicle and cacao provided the chewing gum and chocolate bars in military rations. In England and Germany, herbs replaced pharmaceutical drugs; feverbark was in demand to treat malaria, and penicillin culture used a growth medium made from corn. Rubber was needed for gas masks and barrage balloons, while cotton and hemp provided clothing, canvas, and rope. Timber was used to manufacture Mosquito bombers, and wood gasification and coal replaced petroleum in European vehicles. Lebensraum, the Nazi desire for agricultural land, drove Germans eastward; troops weaponized conifers with shell bursts that caused splintering. Ironically, the Nazis condemned non-native plants, but adopted useful Asian soybeans and Mediterranean herbs. Jungle warfare and camouflage required botanical knowledge, and survival manuals detailed edible plants on Pacific islands. Botanical gardens relocated valuable specimens to safe areas, and while remote locations provided opportunities for field botany, Trees surviving in Hiroshima and Nagasaki live as a symbol of rebirth after vast destruction.

Download or read book Plants of Love written by Christian Rätsch and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries humans have searched for plants and potions to enhance both love and lovemaking. PLANTS OF LOVE looks at aphrodisiacs throughout history. This sensational coffee-table conversation starter offers information on over 100 plants thought to have aphrodisiacal powers, along with historical details, intriguing stories, and beautiful full-color art.

Download or read book The Herbal Or General History of Plants written by John Gerard and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A History of Plants in Fifty Fossils written by Paul Kenrick and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated history of plants presented through the stories of 50 key fossil discoveries This is the lively, fully illustrated story of plant life on Earth as revealed through some of the most significant fossil discoveries ever made. Beginning with the origins of plant life in the sea, where photosynthesis first evolved in bacteria, the book traces the evolution of land plants, ferns, conifers and their relatives, and flowering plants. Each fossil is depicted with stunning full-color photography alongside narrative from paleobotanist Paul Kenrick explaining its significance and revealing the story behind its discovery. Interspersed throughout the book are contextual "snapshots" of landscapes and environments at various periods of geological time, focusing on plants and plant-animal interactions. A History of Plants in Fifty Fossils is perfect for anyone interested in plants, fossils, and the stories they tell us about life on Earth.

Download or read book Plants and Empire written by Londa Schiebinger and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plants seldom figure in the grand narratives of war, peace, or even everyday life yet they are often at the center of high intrigue. In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Risking their lives to discover exotic plants, these daredevil explorers joined with their sponsors to create a global culture of botany. But some secrets were unearthed only to be lost again. In this moving account of the abuses of indigenous Caribbean people and African slaves, Schiebinger describes how slave women brewed the "peacock flower" into an abortifacient, to ensure that they would bear no children into oppression. Yet, impeded by trade winds of prevailing opinion, knowledge of West Indian abortifacients never flowed into Europe. A rich history of discovery and loss, Plants and Empire explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean populations.

Download or read book Cherokee Plants written by Paul B. Hamel and published by Chelsea Press. This book was released on 2002-12 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 400 plants are listed along with their traditional uses; an explanation of the spiritual relationship of the Cherokee people with their environment; material drawn from conversations with North Carolina Cherokee elders.