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FLORA MIRABILIS
How Plants Have Shaped World Knowledge, Health, Wealth, and Beauty
WASHINGTON (Nov. 3, 2009)—In the fifth century A.D., Alaric the Goth commanded his forces to retreat from Rome, as long as the Romans handed over 3,000 pounds of peppercorns. In the 1600s, the Dutch considered some tulips so precious that one bulb cost as much as a house. The first antidote for malaria was a tea brewed of Peruvian tree bark. Transported to Europe, it came to be called quinine — and changed the course of history.
These and hundreds of other fascinating stories about how plants have shaped and influenced history are told in FLORA MIRABILIS: How Plants Have Shaped World Knowledge, Health, Wealth, and Beauty (National Geographic Books; ISBN: 978-1-4262-0509-5; Oct. 20, 2009; $35; hardcover), a sumptuously illustrated volume from National Geographic and the Missouri Botanical Garden.
FLORA MIRABILIS, by Catherine Herbert Howell, recounts how plants and human civilizations have been linked through the centuries. From prehistory and the earliest uses of plants for food, shelter and tools to biblical references extolling the beauty of flowers in psalm and prayer to today's sophisticated uses of plants in pharmaceuticals and industry, the book traces botanical exploration and discovery and follows the evolving impact of plants on human life and development.
Individual plant profiles relate the extraordinary roles played by 27 of the plants most critical to human history, including wheat, rice, corn, rubber, sugarcane, tobacco, tea and cotton, and chronicle the roles they have played in matters of economics, politics and taste. Accompanying time lines highlight pivotal dates in the plants' histories, while captivating quotes from botanists, poets and philosophers express the importance and meaning of plants and nature to human life and enhance the authoritative narrative.
Providing a visual counterpoint to the engaging text are more than 200 rare and exquisite botanical prints, many never before published in modern times. The book draws primarily from the bounty of botanical illustrations housed at the Missouri Botanical Garden Library, leading the reader through centuries of fascination with the plant world. The illustrations in the book range from early stylized woodcuts dating from the 15th century through the intaglio etchings and engravings of the 16th to 18th centuries to the vibrant colors of the lithographs of the 19th and 20th centuries. The earliest work depicted in this volume is the "Gart der Gesundheit" ("Garden of Health"), a compendium of medicinal botany printed in Germany in 1487.
"The book offers a glimpse into the treasures housed in the library at the Missouri Botanical Garden that few of our visitors have the opportunity to view. It uses time lines, narrative and historic illustrations to tell the long and fascinating story of how the love of and quest for the botanical riches of our planet weave through all of human history. Botanical exploration and discovery, innovation and commerce based on the products of the plant world — these have been the driving forces of civilizations for millennia. The story told in these pages leaves no doubt that our human history is inexorably connected to the world of plants," said Douglas Holland, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden Library, in his introduction.
The foreword to the book is provided by Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden and one of the world's leading botanists and advocates of conservation and biodiversity. He is chairman of National Geographic's Committee for Research and Exploration.
Comprehensive and absorbing, FLORA MIRABILIS is as much a tale of adventure as it is a fascinating celebration of plants and the roles they have played through history. This elegantly designed book is sure to capture the interest and imagination of gardeners, naturalists, flower lovers, history buffs and anyone who has ever stopped to smell the roses.
Author Catherine Howell has written a number of books for National Geographic, including "Backyard Wilderness," "Mountain Life" and four volumes in the Nature Library series, and has contributed to dozens of other books, among them National Geographic's "Book of Peoples of the World," "Expeditions Atlas" and "The Curious Naturalist."
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Contacts:
Chandra Teitscheid
National Geographic
202-828-6678
cteitsch@ngs.org
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