The Plant Messiah
Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species
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Narrated by:
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Roy McMillan
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By:
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Carlos Magdalena
About this listen
An impassioned memoir of saving extraordinary plants on the brink of extinction, by a scientist who has been called a "codebreaker" (Telegraph) and "an inspiration" (Jane Goodall)
Carlos Magdalena is not your average horticulturist. He's a man on a mission to save the world's most endangered plants. First captivated by the flora of his native Spain, he has traveled to the remotest parts of the globe in search of exotic species. Renowned for his pioneering work, he has committed his life to protecting plants from man-made ecological destruction and thieves hunting for wealthy collectors.
In The Plant Messiah, Magdalena takes listeners from the Amazon to the jungles of Mauritius to deep within the Australian Outback in search of the rare and the vulnerable. Back in the lab, we watch as he develops groundbreaking, left-field techniques for rescuing species from extinction, encouraging them to propagate and thrive once again. Along the way, he offers moving, heartfelt stories about the secrets contained within these incredible organisms.
Passionate and absorbing, The Plant Messiah is a tribute to the diversity of life on our planet and the importance of preserving it.
©2018 Carlos Magdalena (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"A gripping account... The work done by Magdalena and others like him is nothing short of miraculous. [The Plant Messiah] illustrates just how much can be done to save even species that all but the greatest optimist would consider doomed." (The New York Review of Books)
“The Plant Messiah’s storytelling structure and loving descriptions of rare plants are an unabashed appeal to emotion, attempting to light the same passion for the living world in Magdalena’s readers.”(Los Angeles Review of Books)
"For anyone who might have considered plants dull stuff, Mr. Magdalena delivers a thrilling and inspirational account of adventures in the botanical world."(Wall Street Journal)
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Compulsory Reading - Share with Everyone!
- By Charles Koenen on 04-12-20
By: Rowan Jacobsen
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The Backyard Parables
- Lessons on Gardening, and Life
- By: Margaret Roach
- Narrated by: Margaret Roach
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Margaret Roach has been harvesting 30 years of backyard parables - deceptively simple, instructive stories from a life spent digging ever deeper - and has distilled them in this memoir along with her best tips for garden making, discouraging all manner of animal and insect opponents, at-home pickling, and more. After ruminating on the bigger picture in her memoir And I Shall Have Some Peace There, Margaret Roach has returned to the garden, insisting as ever that we must garden with both our head and heart, or as she expresses it, with "horticultural how-to and woo-woo."
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Great Writing Distracting Reading
- By Amazon Customer on 02-11-13
By: Margaret Roach
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The Tree
- A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter
- By: Colin Tudge
- Narrated by: Enn Reitel
- Length: 19 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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There are redwoods in California that were ancient by the time Columbus first landed and pines still alive that germinated around the time humans invented writing. There are Douglas firs as tall as skyscrapers and a banyan tree in Calcutta as big as a football field. From the tallest to the smallest, trees inspire wonder in all of us, and in The Tree, Colin Tudge travels around the world - throughout the United States, the Costa Rican rain forest, Panama and Brazil, India, New Zealand, China, and most of Europe - bringing to life stories and facts about the trees around us.
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Not the book described in the Audible summary
- By E. Miller on 04-28-17
By: Colin Tudge
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A Naturalist at Large
- The Best Essays of Bernd Heinrich
- By: Bernd Heinrich
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of the finest scientists and writers of our time comes an engaging record of a life spent in close observation of the natural world, one that has yielded marvelous, mind-altering insight and discoveries. In essays that span several decades, Bernd Heinrich finds himself at his beloved camp in Maine, plays host to annoying visitors from Europe (the cluster fly) and more helpful guests from Asia (ladybugs), and unravels the far-reaching ecological consequences of elephants in Botswana bruising mopane trees.
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Listen and See the World Anew!
- By Thoughtful Learner on 06-03-18
By: Bernd Heinrich
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The Wonder of Birds
- What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future
- By: Jim Robbins
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Birds, Jim Robbins posits, are our most vital connection to nature. They compel us to look to the skies, both literally and metaphorically, draw us out into nature to seek their beauty, and let us experience vicariously what it is like to be weightless. Birds have helped us in so many of our human endeavors: learning to fly, providing clothing and food, and helping us better understand the human brain and body.
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Stories about birds with something for everyone
- By D on 07-24-17
By: Jim Robbins
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The Galápagos
- A Natural History
- By: Henry Nicholls
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The Galapagos were once known to the sailors and pirates who encountered them as Las Encantadas: the enchanted islands, home to exotic creatures and dramatic volcanic scenery. In The Galapagos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its evolution from deserted wilderness to scientific resource (made famous by Charles Darwin) and global ecotourism hot spot.
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Thought-Provoking
- By Jean on 10-23-18
By: Henry Nicholls
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The Soil Will Save Us
- How Scientists, Farmers, and Ranchers Are Tending the Soil to Reverse Global Warming
- By: Kristin Ohlson
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Soil Will Save Us, journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for "our great green hope"—a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon—and potentially reverse global warming. Her discoveries and vivid storytelling will revolutionize the way we think about our food, our landscapes, our plants, and our relationship to Earth.
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Rambling, mile wide, inch deep treatment of a subject
- By Charles Phillips on 10-17-18
By: Kristin Ohlson
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How to Read Nature
- An Expert's Guide to Discovering the Outdoors You've Never Noticed
- By: Tristan Gooley
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 3 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Nobody wakes up in the morning and decides to shut down their senses and stumble through each day in an oblivious bubble, and yet some people end up having much richer experiences than others. In this guidebook, natural navigator Tristan Gooley strives to reawaken our senses to help us understand and deepen our personal experience of nature. His message is to connect - however we can and to whatever draws us in.
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A fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees
- By Mark A Bleakley on 08-07-18
By: Tristan Gooley
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The Fruit Hunters
- A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession
- By: Adam Leith Gollner
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Tasty, lethal, hallucinogenic, and medicinal - fruits have led nations into wars, fueled dictatorships, and even lured us into new worlds. Adam Leith Gollner weaves business, science, and travel into a riveting narrative about one of the earth's most desired foods.
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Interesting world...
- By Henry Scalfo on 07-16-08
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In Search of the Canary Tree
- The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress, and a Changing World
- By: Lauren E. Oakes
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Several years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's old-growth forests to hunt for a dying tree: the yellow-cedar. With climate change as the culprit, the death of this species meant loss for many Alaskans. Oakes and her research team wanted to chronicle how plants and people could cope with their rapidly changing world. Amidst the standing dead, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again in the wake of destruction, and a diverse community of people who persevered to create new relationships with the emerging environment.
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Moving and inspiring
- By Catherine A Gould on 05-26-19
By: Lauren E. Oakes
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Wild Ones
- A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America
- By: Jon Mooallem
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Half of all species could disappear by the end of the century, and scientists now concede that most of America’s endangered animals will survive only if conservationists keep rigging the world around them in their favor. So Jon Mooallem ventures into the field, often taking his daughter with him, to move beyond childlike fascination and make those creatures feel more real. Wild Ones is a tour through our environmental moment and the eccentric cultural history of people and wild animals in America that inflects it.
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The line between conservation and domestication...
- By Bonny on 04-02-14
By: Jon Mooallem
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Nature's Best Hope
- A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard
- By: Douglas W. Tallamy
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Douglas W. Tallamy's first book, Bringing Nature Home, awakened thousands of individuals to an urgent situation: wildlife populations are in decline because the native plants they depend on are fast disappearing. His solution? Plant more natives. In this new book, Tallamy takes the next step and outlines his vision for a grassroots approach to conservation.
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A must read for everybody! Not just nature lovers.
- By Steve Ebert on 06-11-20
What listeners say about The Plant Messiah
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- CN
- 05-07-18
Great for anyone who cares about conservation and is interested in botany
Interesting personal story of Carlos Magdalena and anecdotes of species that he helped bring back. Nice introduction to horticultural practices as well.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sarah Garland
- 07-06-22
Nice autobio
Nice autobiography of/by Carlos Magdalena. I'm a fairly recent fan of plant and plant pathology books. However I've been interested in plants since highschool genetics class and learning about Mendel's pea plant + my HS green house class.
This book maybe wasn't what I expected when I selected it.
Magdalena is a good storyteller and clearly passionate about plants. The one thing this genre has trouble with globally is the ability to tell me practical ways of helping.
I would like to read a book by Magdalena on maybe how to identify or propagate plants, how to ensure I don't accidentally introduce a chaotic invasive species into my local environment on some evangelical mission to preserve some exotic rare plant.
Or even how to figure out which species of plants are endangered in my area and the techniques and methods to test or determine propagation. Maybe even how or where to share this knowledge? Basically, how to be a citizen scientist.
4.5 stars.
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- Ian Compton
- 02-28-21
An amazing book for the botanist in everyone.
A fascinating journey throught the life and career of a truly passionate man. Carlos is a true and clear voice for the plant kingdom in these uncertain times. His efforts have already saved several plant species from certain extinction. We owe this man a debt of gratitude for his unending work for the nature world.
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- J. Thomas
- 01-30-20
Get this book
I Loved it. A must listen. Carlos shows the rarity and beauty of the planet.
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- See Reverse
- 02-20-21
Saving Endangered Species
Journey with Carlos Magalena around the world saving rare plants. From his base at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Carlos investigates the secrets of propagating rare and endangered plant species - to great success. Wonderful insights into the value and challenges that go into saving these rare species. A hero's journey, for plants.
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- Brian
- 09-04-23
Fabulous Book!
Amazing well written and I'm equally well read story of an amazing human being who's trying to save part of what is Earth and why there's too many people on the planet doing horrible things but we can change that and choose to be better!
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- F Shaw
- 07-08-18
Very informative, sometimes irritating
The author is very pleased with himself, to a degree that almost made me stop listening.
But there were some great plant stories and it does seem an important subject.
But come on, what kind of person would use the word Messiah, referring to themselves, even jokingly, in the title
of their book?
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4 people found this helpful