Kathy Willis

A relaxing and slightly old fashioned text. I'll give it another half star but I'm feeling generous. It's mostly about Kew Gardens which seems obvious to me from the cover but maybe it would have been better to include it in the title as some other reviewers complained as it came as a surprise.

I think my favourite chapter was 'A Blooming Tree of Life' but it is very brief. There were other interesting chapters too but the structure of the book has many brief chapters punctuated with groups show more of photos that are great but always come too late to illuminate the text, and it's always difficult to hunt back and find something that was interesting but half remembered.

And I have to agree with some other reviewers. The coverage of the british empire is mealy-mouthed. Reads as if the authors might have been a lot fiercer but were going to great lengths to try and speak a bit of truth without upsetting some vague establishment consensus. And for such a global subject came across as a disappointingly narrow viewpoint. Perhaps only an extra quarter star. show less

I thought this was a well-written, versatile and utterly fascinating book! It shows different aspects of plants and people who pushed our knowledge of the plant world further. It becomes very clear how important work is done by the scientists of the Kew Gardens, and how relevant it is for us.

This is indeed big and beautiful and a wonderful sampling of the world of plants. Perhaps it will inspire youngsters to become botanists or to study environments & habitats. I, personally, am too overwhelmed to make the time to care for it (too big for my book bags) and to read it thoroughly. (Note that I don't rate books that I don't actually read, but I probably would give it four stars).

Really lovely extra-large format book with some typos. It makes use of a museum analogy which is quite appropriate.