The Resource A garden of marvels : how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants, Ruth Kassinger
A garden of marvels : how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants, Ruth Kassinger
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The item A garden of marvels : how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants, Ruth Kassinger represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Waubonsee Community College.This item is available to borrow from 1 library branch.
Resource Information
The item A garden of marvels : how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants, Ruth Kassinger represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Waubonsee Community College.
This item is available to borrow from 1 library branch.
- Summary
-
- "A witty and engaging history of the first botanists, interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the labIn Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounts with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing the lessons that she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis. In A Garden of Marvels, she extends the story. "This book was born of a murder, a murder I committed," she begins. The victim was a kumquat tree. Though she diligently did her best--watering, fertilizing, repotting, and pruning--the plant turned brown and brittle. Why did the kumquat die when other plants in the garden that received the same attention thrived? she wondered. It was an experience that offered invaluable insight. While she knew the basic rules of caring for indoor plants, Kassinger realized that she understood very little about plant physiology--how roots, stems, leaves, and flowers actually function. Determined not to repeat her failure, she set out to learn the fundamentals of botany in order to become a better gardener. A Garden of Marvels is the story of her wise and enchanting odyssey to discover the secret life of plants. Kassinger retraces the progress of the first botanists--including a melancholy Italian anatomist, a renegade French surgeon, a stuttering English minister, an obsessive German schoolteacher, and Charles Darwin--who banished myths and misunderstandings and discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, roots choose their food, and hormones make morning glories climb fence posts. She goes out into the world as well, visiting modern gardens, farms, and labs to discover the science behind extraordinary plants like one-ton pumpkins, truly black petunias, ferns that eat the arsenic in contaminated soil, biofuel grass that grows twelve feet tall, and the world's only photosynthesizing animal. Kassinger also introduces us to modern scientific research that offers hope for combatting climate change and alleviating world hunger. She then transfers her insights to her own garden, where she nurtures a "cocktail" tree that bears five kinds of fruit, cures an ailing Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi, and gets a tree to text her when it's thirsty. Intertwining personal anecdotes, accessible science, and little-known history, A Garden of Marvels takes us on an eye-opening journey into Kassinger's garden--and yours--offering us a new appreciation of this exquisite gift of nature: "Our garden is more than a marvel. It's as close to a miracle as there is on Earth.""--
- "In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, the author of Paradise Under Glass gives us a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab"--
- Language
- eng
- Edition
- First edition.
- Extent
- xviii pages, 395 pages
- Contents
-
- pt. I. Inside a plant : Cocktail, anyone? ; The birth and long life of the vegetable lamb ; Through a glass, however darkly ; The persecuted professor ; Inside a plant
- pt. II. Roots : Restless roots ; The enormous gourd ; The way of all water ; How to kill a hickory ; Our fine fungal friends ; Arsenic and young fronds ; The once and future wheat ; Off to the races
- pt. III. Leaves : New beginnings ; A momentous mint ; Leaves eat air ; The vegetable slug ; Once in a blue-green moon ; The tenacity of trees ; Amazing grass
- pt. IV. Flowers : Sex in the garden ; Who needs Romeo? ; Black petunias ; The abominable mystery ; Cheap sex ; Scent and sex
- pt. V. Onward, upward, and afterward : Trouble in paradise ; Onward and upward ; Afterward
- Isbn
- 9780062049018
- Link
-
- www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/tiff/8/9780062048998.tif
- http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/tiff/8/9780062048998.tif
- Label
- A garden of marvels : how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants
- Title
- A garden of marvels
- Title remainder
- how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants
- Statement of responsibility
- Ruth Kassinger
- Subject
-
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Personal Memoirs
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
- Botanists
- Botanists -- United States -- Anecdotes
- Botany
- Botany -- Humor
- Humor
- Jeane Thomson gardening collection -- Anacortes (Wash.)
- Anecdotes
- Kassinger, Ruth, 1954- -- Anecdotes
- NATURE -- Plants | General
- NATURE / Plants / General
- United States
- Women gardeners
- Women gardeners -- United States -- Anecdotes
- Kassinger, Ruth, 1954-
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Literary
- Language
- eng
- Summary
-
- "A witty and engaging history of the first botanists, interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the labIn Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounts with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing the lessons that she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis. In A Garden of Marvels, she extends the story. "This book was born of a murder, a murder I committed," she begins. The victim was a kumquat tree. Though she diligently did her best--watering, fertilizing, repotting, and pruning--the plant turned brown and brittle. Why did the kumquat die when other plants in the garden that received the same attention thrived? she wondered. It was an experience that offered invaluable insight. While she knew the basic rules of caring for indoor plants, Kassinger realized that she understood very little about plant physiology--how roots, stems, leaves, and flowers actually function. Determined not to repeat her failure, she set out to learn the fundamentals of botany in order to become a better gardener. A Garden of Marvels is the story of her wise and enchanting odyssey to discover the secret life of plants. Kassinger retraces the progress of the first botanists--including a melancholy Italian anatomist, a renegade French surgeon, a stuttering English minister, an obsessive German schoolteacher, and Charles Darwin--who banished myths and misunderstandings and discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, roots choose their food, and hormones make morning glories climb fence posts. She goes out into the world as well, visiting modern gardens, farms, and labs to discover the science behind extraordinary plants like one-ton pumpkins, truly black petunias, ferns that eat the arsenic in contaminated soil, biofuel grass that grows twelve feet tall, and the world's only photosynthesizing animal. Kassinger also introduces us to modern scientific research that offers hope for combatting climate change and alleviating world hunger. She then transfers her insights to her own garden, where she nurtures a "cocktail" tree that bears five kinds of fruit, cures an ailing Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi, and gets a tree to text her when it's thirsty. Intertwining personal anecdotes, accessible science, and little-known history, A Garden of Marvels takes us on an eye-opening journey into Kassinger's garden--and yours--offering us a new appreciation of this exquisite gift of nature: "Our garden is more than a marvel. It's as close to a miracle as there is on Earth.""--
- "In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, the author of Paradise Under Glass gives us a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab"--
- Assigning source
-
- Provided by publisher
- Provided by publisher
- Biography type
- autobiography
- Cataloging source
- DLC
- http://library.link/vocab/creatorDate
- 1954-
- http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
- Kassinger, Ruth
- Dewey number
-
- 580.92
- B
- Illustrations
- illustrations
- Index
- index present
- LC call number
- QK31.K37
- LC item number
- A3 2014
- Literary form
- non fiction
- NAL call number
- QK31.K37
- NAL item number
- A3 2014
- Nature of contents
- bibliography
- http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
-
- Kassinger, Ruth
- Women gardeners
- NATURE
- Botany
- Kassinger, Ruth
- Botanists
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
- Botanists
- Botany
- Women gardeners
- United States
- NATURE / Plants / General
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary
- Jeane Thomson gardening collection
- Label
- A garden of marvels : how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants, Ruth Kassinger
- Link
-
- www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/tiff/8/9780062048998.tif
- http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/tiff/8/9780062048998.tif
- Bibliography note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 368-379) and index
- Carrier category
- volume
- Carrier category code
-
- nc
- Carrier MARC source
- rdacarrier
- Content category
- text
- Content type code
-
- txt
- Content type MARC source
- rdacontent
- Contents
- pt. I. Inside a plant : Cocktail, anyone? ; The birth and long life of the vegetable lamb ; Through a glass, however darkly ; The persecuted professor ; Inside a plant -- pt. II. Roots : Restless roots ; The enormous gourd ; The way of all water ; How to kill a hickory ; Our fine fungal friends ; Arsenic and young fronds ; The once and future wheat ; Off to the races -- pt. III. Leaves : New beginnings ; A momentous mint ; Leaves eat air ; The vegetable slug ; Once in a blue-green moon ; The tenacity of trees ; Amazing grass -- pt. IV. Flowers : Sex in the garden ; Who needs Romeo? ; Black petunias ; The abominable mystery ; Cheap sex ; Scent and sex -- pt. V. Onward, upward, and afterward : Trouble in paradise ; Onward and upward ; Afterward
- Control code
- ocn870211334
- Dimensions
- 22 cm
- Edition
- First edition.
- Extent
- xviii pages, 395 pages
- Isbn
- 9780062049018
- Lccn
- 2014002824
- Media category
- unmediated
- Media MARC source
- rdamedia
- Media type code
-
- n
- Other physical details
- illustrations
- System control number
-
- (Sirsi) i9780062048998
- (OCoLC)870211334
- Label
- A garden of marvels : how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants, Ruth Kassinger
- Link
-
- www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/tiff/8/9780062048998.tif
- http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/isbn/tiff/8/9780062048998.tif
- Bibliography note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 368-379) and index
- Carrier category
- volume
- Carrier category code
-
- nc
- Carrier MARC source
- rdacarrier
- Content category
- text
- Content type code
-
- txt
- Content type MARC source
- rdacontent
- Contents
- pt. I. Inside a plant : Cocktail, anyone? ; The birth and long life of the vegetable lamb ; Through a glass, however darkly ; The persecuted professor ; Inside a plant -- pt. II. Roots : Restless roots ; The enormous gourd ; The way of all water ; How to kill a hickory ; Our fine fungal friends ; Arsenic and young fronds ; The once and future wheat ; Off to the races -- pt. III. Leaves : New beginnings ; A momentous mint ; Leaves eat air ; The vegetable slug ; Once in a blue-green moon ; The tenacity of trees ; Amazing grass -- pt. IV. Flowers : Sex in the garden ; Who needs Romeo? ; Black petunias ; The abominable mystery ; Cheap sex ; Scent and sex -- pt. V. Onward, upward, and afterward : Trouble in paradise ; Onward and upward ; Afterward
- Control code
- ocn870211334
- Dimensions
- 22 cm
- Edition
- First edition.
- Extent
- xviii pages, 395 pages
- Isbn
- 9780062049018
- Lccn
- 2014002824
- Media category
- unmediated
- Media MARC source
- rdamedia
- Media type code
-
- n
- Other physical details
- illustrations
- System control number
-
- (Sirsi) i9780062048998
- (OCoLC)870211334
Subject
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Personal Memoirs
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
- Botanists
- Botanists -- United States -- Anecdotes
- Botany
- Botany -- Humor
- Humor
- Jeane Thomson gardening collection -- Anacortes (Wash.)
- Anecdotes
- Kassinger, Ruth, 1954- -- Anecdotes
- NATURE -- Plants | General
- NATURE / Plants / General
- United States
- Women gardeners
- Women gardeners -- United States -- Anecdotes
- Kassinger, Ruth, 1954-
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Literary
Genre
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<div class="citation" vocab="http://schema.org/"><i class="fa fa-external-link-square fa-fw"></i> Data from <span resource="http://link.library.waubonsee.edu/portal/A-garden-of-marvels--how-we-discovered-that/ifFIa5PTh7g/" typeof="Book http://bibfra.me/vocab/lite/Item"><span property="name http://bibfra.me/vocab/lite/label"><a href="http://link.library.waubonsee.edu/portal/A-garden-of-marvels--how-we-discovered-that/ifFIa5PTh7g/">A garden of marvels : how we discovered that flowers have sex, leaves eat air, and other secrets of plants, Ruth Kassinger</a></span> - <span property="potentialAction" typeOf="OrganizeAction"><span property="agent" typeof="LibrarySystem http://library.link/vocab/LibrarySystem" resource="http://link.library.waubonsee.edu/"><span property="name http://bibfra.me/vocab/lite/label"><a property="url" href="http://link.library.waubonsee.edu/">Waubonsee Community College</a></span></span></span></span></div>