Wily Violets and Underground Orchids: Revelations of a Botanist

A curious book describing all sorts of interesting things about plants. Mostly it's about the intricate relationship flowers have with their pollinators, be it birds, insects or small mammals. A lot of the focus is on Australian plants. There's also a chapter on tallgrass prairie, and several about orchids.

I think what fascinated me most was reading about the mistletoes that grow in Australia. There are so many but they are so well-camouflaged that most people don't even notice them. They grow as parasites on other trees, and usually their leaves mimic the shape of the host leaves. What's so interesting is the debate about why the mistletoes look like their hosts. One theory is simply that they have evolved to blend in and thus avoid show more browsing animals that would eat them. Another is that trees make hormones in their roots that determine leaf shape, then send the hormones up to the leaves through their xylem. Since mistletoes don't have their own roots, and absorb whatever is in flowing through their host's xylem, they also take in the hormones; thus their leaves look the same. Isn't that interesting?

I was also really intrigued to read about the giant water lilies (that can support the weight of a person) and how difficult it was for botanists to learn to propagate and grow them in greenhouses. One botanist, after studying how the thin leaf structure could support so much weight, applied the same physics to architecture, and amazed everyone with his glass palace!

If you're interesting in plants- especially orchids and mistletoes, I'd say this book is a pretty good one.

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