The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination

Richard Mabey (author)

In The Cabaret of Plants, Mabey explores the plant species which have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty and belief.

Picked from every walk of life, they encompass crops, weeds, medicines, religious gathering-places and a water lily named after a queen. Beginning with pagan cults and creation myths, the cultural significance of plants has burst upwards, sprouting into forms as diverse as the panacea (the cure-all plant ginseng, a single root of which can cost up to $10,000), Newton's apple, the African 'vegetable elephant' or boabab - and the mystical, night-flowering Amazonian cactus, the moonflower.

Ranging widely across science, art and cultural history, poetry and personal experience, Mabey puts plants centre stage, and reveals a true botanical cabaret, a world of tricksters, shape-shifters and inspired problem-solvers, as well as an enthralled audience of romantics, eccentric amateur scientists and transgressive artists. The Cabaret of Plants celebrates the idea that plants are not simply 'the furniture of the planet', but vital, inventive, individual beings worthy of respect - and that to understand this may be the best way of preserving life together on Earth.

Richard Mabey is one of Britain's foremost writers on the subject of nature. He is the author of Flora Britannica, which won the British Book Awards' Illustrated Book of the Year, and Birds Britannica (Chatto, 2005) and he wrote, narrated and produced the popular BBC TV series Postcards from the Country in 1996. He writes a regular column for BBC Wildlife magazine and has written on nature for The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. He lives in Norfolk.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Profile Books; Main edition (6 Oct. 2016)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1861979582
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.8 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm