essays on plants

[David R. Hershey]

Popular plant biology articles/essays can be found in Scientific American,
Natural History, Discover, Audubon, American Scientist, National
Geographic, Science News, BioScience, New Scientist, and Endeavour. 

There are many coffee table books on plants that have lots of color 
photos so are generally more interesting reading than texts. Some have  
even been written by scientists. Some of my favorites are

Slack, Adrian. 1980. Carnivorous plants. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Attenborough, David. 1995. The private life of plants. Princeton 
University Press, Princeton, NJ. [Companion book to the excellent 
6-episode BBC series, but with a few oversimplifications.]

Hewes, Jeremy Joan. 1981. Redwoods, the world's largest trees. Gallery 
Books, New York.

Meeuse, Bastiaan and Sean Morris. 1984. The sex life of flowers. Facts on 
File, New York. [Companion book to the Nature episode.]

Wilkins, Malcolm. 1988. Plantwatching: How plants remember, tell time, 
form relationships and more. Facts on file, New York. [A color 
version of a plant physiology text, available for $12.95 from Edward R. 
Hamilton, Falls Village, CT 06031-5000 who sells discount books].

Huxley, Anthony. 1985. Green inheritance: The World Wildlife Fund Book of 
Plants. Anchor Press, New York.

Went, Fritz W. 1963. The plants. Time, New York. [Maybe a bit dated but 
well-written by a famous plant physiologist].

Murphy, Wendy. 1984. The future world of agriculture: Walt Disney World 
EPCOT Center book Grolier, CT. [Book sold at the popular Land exhibit 
featuring hydroponics].

Camus, Josephine M., A. Clive Hermy, and Barry A. Thomas. 1991. A world 
of ferns. Natural History Museum Publications, New York.

Lewington, Anna. 1990. Plants for people. Oxford University Press, New 
York. [A colorful economic botany book written for nonscientists].

Rix, Martyn. 1981. The art of botanical illustration. Arch Cape Press, 
New York. [With a few inaccuracies, but lots of spectacular illustrations 
from old herbals and florilegia].


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David R. Hershey
					
Snail mail: 6700 Belcrest Road #112, Hyattsville, MD 20782-1398

Adjunct Professor, Biology/Horticulture Department
Prince George's Community College, Largo, MD 20772-2199

Email: dh321 at pgstumail.pg.cc.md.us
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On 15 Jan 1996 reynolds at cwu.edu wrote:

> I am teaching an introductory botany course for the first time and want 
> to liven up the course with more than just text book readings. Does 
> anyone know of essays, articles, books on interesting aspects of plants? 
> I'm thinking of Stephen J. Gould type or David Quammen level essays. One 
> good source I've found is "Wily Violets and Underground Orchids" by Peter 
> Bernhardt which has many interesting chapters on reproductive biology.
> 
> Doug Reynolds
> Dept. of Biological Sciences
> Central Washington University
> Ellensburg, Wa. 98926
> reynolds at cwu.edu
>