Showing titles in Botany & Plants

A heady blend of international intrigue, social theory, botanical lore, and ecological study, The Cactus Hunters offers complex insight into species extinction, conservation, and more-than-human care.

Used anciently as medicine to boost immunity, improve memory, aid digestion, and enhance overall well-being, medicinal mushrooms hold extraordinary potential to improve the health of modern humans. Thousands of studies show that they are among nature’s most potent remedies possessing novel compounds and properties to fight inflammation, balance blood sugar, enhance the gut microbiome, and optimize mental health. "Improving Human Health through the Healing Power of Medicinal Mushrooms" is your ultimate guide to integrating these remarkable remedies into your life. This groundbreaking book ...

Have you been fascinated by the concept of growing your own psilocybin mushrooms, but don’t know where to start? No matter what your current experience level is, How to Grow Psilocybin Mushrooms at Home the FOOLPROOF Way will walk you through the step-by-step process of growing mushrooms in your own home, resulting in a beautiful crop on the first attempt. From beginner to advanced, everything is laid out with detailed descriptions, ensuring you will have a successful mushroom farm in less than two months!

Twelve Trees introduces us to a dozen species of trees that epitomize the challenges facing the planet, and the ways that scientists and others are working with a growing sense of urgency to save them. Scientists, ethnobotanists, indigenous peoples, and collectives of all kinds are studying trees and their workings, using a host of new tools, to learn how trees function individually and collectively, and why they do what they do.

Fungipedia presents a delightful A-Z treasury of mushroom lore. With more than 180 entries - on topics as varied as Alice in Wonderland, chestnut blight, medicinal mushrooms, poisonings, Santa Claus, and waxy caps - this collection will transport both general listeners and specialists into the remarkable universe of fungi. Combining ecological, ethnographic, historical, and contemporary knowledge, author and mycologist Lawrence Millman discusses how mushrooms are much more closely related to humans than to plants, how they engage in sex, how insects farm them, and more.

Long Litt Woon met Eiolf a month after arriving in Norway from Malaysia as an exchange student. They fell in love, married, and settled into domestic bliss. Then Eiolf’s unexpected death at 54 left Woon struggling to imagine a life without the man who had been her partner and anchor for 32 years. Adrift in grief, she signed up for a beginner’s course on mushrooming - a course the two of them had planned to take together - and found, to her surprise, that the pursuit of mushrooms rekindled her zest for life.

'Forest bathing' or shinrin-yoku is a way of walking in the woods that was developed in Japan in the 1980s. It brings together ancient ways and wisdom with cutting-edge environmental health science. Simply put, forest bathing is the practice of walking slowly through the woods, in no hurry, for a morning, an afternoon or a day. It is a practice that involves all the senses and as you gently walk and breathe deeply, the essential oils of the trees are absorbed by your body and have an extraordinary effect on positive feelings.

Eliminate the guesswork out of setting up your very own hydroponic garden and learn how to grow your own fruits, vegetables, and herbs right in the comfort of your backyard! Hydroponic gardening is the practice of growing useful and edible plants without soil. In this highly practical guide, you'll find useful insights and practical step-by-step instructions to help you set up your very first or next hydroponic garden and grow robust, vibrant plants.

Professor Richard Fortey has been a devoted field mycologist all his life. He has rejoiced in the exuberant variety and profusion of mushrooms since reading as a boy of nuns driven mad by ergot (a fungus). Drawing on decades of experience doing science in the woods and fields, Fortey starts with the perfect ‘fungus day’ – eating ceps in Piedmont. He introduces brown rotters and the white, earthstars and death caps; fungal annuals and perennials, dung lovers and parasites, even fungi that move through the trees like mycelial monkeys.

Susan S. Scott is an experienced psychotherapist who, due to a back injury, was forced to abandon her therapist's couch and walk for therapy. Through her extended strolls through nature, she discovered the ingenious ability of trees to grow around obstacles and, in essence, heal themselves. The result of Dr. Scott's musings is Healing with Nature. This collection of stories and photos describes a different aspect of the healing process.

A prize-winning memoirist and nature writer turns to the lives of plants entangled in our human world to explore belonging, displacement, identity, and the truths of our shared future.

Plants are the great healers of the Earth, and their capacity to support healthy sexuality is just as powerful. This beautifully crafted and illustrated book brings you into a relationship with herbs for sexual fulfillment and empowerment. Drawing on her own knowledge of herbalism and sacred sensuality, along with intimate stories from students who implemented her teachings, Kimberly Gallagher guides you on a personal journey of growth aided by the aphrodisiac properties and sensual uses of healing herbs and flowers

The Plant Hunter's Atlas is a volume telling some of the most extraordinary tales of horticultural discovery and exploring the characters behind the stories. Taking in the world's inhabited continents and spanning the centuries, the stories range from tales of derring-do in the age of discovery to modern-day botanists working at the cutting-edge of science. The text explores how plant hunters have been inspired by everything from scientific curiosity to economic greed, and their own ingrained sense of adventure.

Jailed as a scapegoat for Stalin's famines, Vavilov had traveled over five continents, collected hundreds of thousands of seeds in an effort to outline the ancient centers of agricultural diversity. Gary Paul Nabhan weaves together Vavilov's story with his own expeditions to Earth's richest agricultural landscapes and the cultures that tend them.

Marcus Bridgewater has been compared to Bob Ross and Mister Rogers for his soothing TikTok videos that relate botany to humanity. A gardener “who shares tips about caring for one’s plants and oneself” (New York Times) and “is not only a trove of information if you’re looking to flex your green thumb, but a balm for the pandemic-induced chaos happening in the world” (Vogue), his soothing observations on plants and life have made him a social media star. In caring for over 600 plants, Marcus has gained invaluable wisdom.

Following on from her examination of the weird and wonderful animal kingdom, this second season of Earpedia sees comedian Sue Perkins presenting a series of audio guides to the planet's most useful, bizarre and interesting plants.

Mushrooms aren’t just easy to grow and delicious to eat. Even for beginners, they represent an opportunity to start a lucrative business that is much easier than many other types of farming, which requires only limited experience or knowledge and doesn’t require acres of land to get started. Whether you want to grow mushrooms as a hobby, give yourself an additional source of food that is readily available, or start a small-scale business, Growing Mushrooms is the perfect book to get you going and provides all you will need in the initial stages and beyond.

With a new introduction exclusively in audio, read by Anna Pavord. The Tulip is not a gardening book. It is the story of a flower that has made men mad. Greed, desire, anguish and devotion have all played their parts in the development of the tulip into the worldwide phenomenon it is today. No other flower has ever carried so much cultural baggage; it charts political upheavals, illuminates social behaviour, mirrors economic booms and busts and plots the ebb and flow of religious persecution.

From beneficial yeasts that aid digestion to toxic molds that cause disease, we are constantly navigating a world filled with fungi. Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines explores the amazing ways fungi interact with our bodies, showing how our health and well-being depend on an immense ecosystem of yeasts and molds inside and all around us.

When he first envisioned becoming a farmer, author Emmet Van Driesche never imagined his main crop would be Christmas trees, nor that such a tree farm could be more of a managed forest than the conventional grid of perfectly sheared trees. Carving Out a Living on the Land tells the story of how Van Driesche navigated changing life circumstances, took advantage of unexpected opportunities, and leveraged new and old skills to piece together an economically viable living, while at the same time respecting the land’s complex ecological relationships.