Rob Kesseler

A fascinating celebration of the “astounding diversity and complexity of seeds,” this jaw-droppingly beautiful 8¼"x9" volume is a unique melding of art and science. Seed morphologist Wolfgang Stuppy presents a contagiously enthusiastic natural history of these tiny yet sophisticated organs, from the appearance of the first seed plants around 360 million years ago to the founding of the Millennium Seed Bank in 2000. And then, the amazing images: Artist Rob Kesseler, using macrophotography and scans of electron micrographs, creates incredibly vivid close-ups of plants and the astonishingly intricate seeds that produce them. Designers, artists, scientists, gardeners, nature-lovers…well, just about anyone will be wowed by this unusual and incredible work.… (more)

from the Taxacom mailing list:
Subject: [Taxacom] amazing new book on seeds published!

Hi everybody,

This one might be interesting for some of you. A new popular scientific book
has just been published on seeds. Being literally the only book of its kind
on the subject, the scholarly written but highly readable account (judged so
in an independent review) is a great educational tool and additional read
for university students and everybody interested in plant structure and
evolution.

Prepared by artist Rob Kesseler and Wolfgang Stuppy, Kew's seed
morphologist, "Seeds - Time Capsules of Life" is a book woven around the
Millennium Seed Bank Project. It presents a natural history of seeds
illustrated with some of the most spectacular examples of seeds and fruits
found in nature. The story begins with the evolution of seeds and their
structure and discusses their dispersal through space and time, the latter
finally leading over to the Millennium Seed Bank Project which is featured
in a separate chapter.
Using seeds collected in the UK and many of the MSB Partner Countries, the
highlight of the book are images taken with a scanning electron microscope
(SEM) that have subsequently been artistically enhanced by Rob Kesseler. For
the first time ever, "Seeds - Time Capsules of Life" reveals the minute and
breathtaking detail of seeds to the public eye and presents their natural
history before a scientifically sound background. The book has recently been
reviewed in the June issue of the BBC Wildlife Magazine and is now available
from the publisher's website (www.papadakis.net), amazon
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1901092666/026-9855724-4062031?v=glance&n=266239)
and other book dealers. An American edition will be published by Firefly in
autumn.… (more)