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A Garden of Marvels: How We Discovered that Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants
In the tradition of The Botany of Desire and Wicked Plants, a witty and engaging history of the first botanists interwoven with stories of today's extraordinary plants found in the garden and the lab.
In Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounted with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing lessons she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis.
In A Garden of Marvels, she extends the story. Frustrated by plants that fail to thrive, she sets out to understand the basics of botany in order to become a better gardener. She retraces the progress of the first botanists 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 also visits modern gardens, farms, and labs to discover the science behind extraordinary plants like one-ton pumpkins, a truly black petunia, a biofuel grass that grows twelve feet tall, and the world's only photosynthesizing animal. Transferring her insights to her own garden, she nurtures a "cocktail" tree that bears five kinds of fruit, cures a Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi, and gets a tree to text her when it's thirsty.
Intertwining personal anecdote, accessible science, and untold history, the ever-engaging author takes us on an eye-opening journey into her garden - and yours.
In Paradise Under Glass, Ruth Kassinger recounted with grace and humor her journey from brown thumb to green, sharing lessons she learned from building a home conservatory in the wake of a devastating personal crisis.
In A Garden of Marvels, she extends the story. Frustrated by plants that fail to thrive, she sets out to understand the basics of botany in order to become a better gardener. She retraces the progress of the first botanists 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 also visits modern gardens, farms, and labs to discover the science behind extraordinary plants like one-ton pumpkins, a truly black petunia, a biofuel grass that grows twelve feet tall, and the world's only photosynthesizing animal. Transferring her insights to her own garden, she nurtures a "cocktail" tree that bears five kinds of fruit, cures a Buddha's Hand plant with beneficial fungi, and gets a tree to text her when it's thirsty.
Intertwining personal anecdote, accessible science, and untold history, the ever-engaging author takes us on an eye-opening journey into her garden - and yours.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published February 25, 2014
103 people are currently reading
1645 people want to read
About the author
Ruth Kassinger
16 books42 followersRuth Kassinger is the award-winning author of eight science and history books for young adults. In addition, her science and health writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, National Geographic Explorer, Health magazine, Science Weekly, and other publications.
Ruth Kassinger's most recent book—her first for an adult audience—is Paradise Under Glass: An Amateur Creates A Conservatory Garden. She chronicles her journey through a midlife crisis by creating a conservatory at her suburban home. Her adventures of her transformation from brown thumb to green, she weaves the history of conservatories from Renaissance orangeries to glass palaces like Kew to today's high-tech plant nurseries in Florida.
Ruth Kassinger lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband, a West Highland terrier, and dozens of tropical plants and trees.
Ruth Kassinger's most recent book—her first for an adult audience—is Paradise Under Glass: An Amateur Creates A Conservatory Garden. She chronicles her journey through a midlife crisis by creating a conservatory at her suburban home. Her adventures of her transformation from brown thumb to green, she weaves the history of conservatories from Renaissance orangeries to glass palaces like Kew to today's high-tech plant nurseries in Florida.
Ruth Kassinger lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband, a West Highland terrier, and dozens of tropical plants and trees.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
June 1, 2014
I love this book. She teaches while writing in engaging manner:
1. More than 85% native plants in the US are perennials.
2. KNOX genes orientates stems to grow straight.
3. The canopy IOC a tulip poplar will hoist 100 gallons per day..
4. A sinker root goes straight down.
5. Few trees have taproots.
6. Brake fern pulls out arsenic .
7. Alyssum bertoloni pulls put nickel and can be processed to release nickel for processing and use.
1. More than 85% native plants in the US are perennials.
2. KNOX genes orientates stems to grow straight.
3. The canopy IOC a tulip poplar will hoist 100 gallons per day..
4. A sinker root goes straight down.
5. Few trees have taproots.
6. Brake fern pulls out arsenic .
7. Alyssum bertoloni pulls put nickel and can be processed to release nickel for processing and use.
July 19, 2016
Ruth Kassinger's lovely book about the plants in our lives starts with a murder: she describes, in heartbreaking detail, the death of a kumquat tree that she had lovingly cared for. From the beginning, I knew I had found a kindred spirit in Kassinger. I love plants: one of my favorite activities is photographing flowers at the botanic gardens, and I dream about someday having a garden full of food that I can take from the ground to my dinner table. Unfortunately, I'm most adept at killing plants, partly because I'm absent-minded, partly because I just have no idea what I'm doing. Actually, if you will excuse me for a moment, I have to tend to my aloe, it's not doing so well.
A Garden of Marvels is a meandering book that's one part science history, one part memoir, one part Mary Roachesque contemporary science writing. The structure is part of its charm, although I did find that it was best read in small doses. In the end, I found myself deeply invested in the fate of Kassinger's hybrid citrus tree.
This was a perfect read for spring, and I recommend it to anyone interested in plants!
A Garden of Marvels is a meandering book that's one part science history, one part memoir, one part Mary Roachesque contemporary science writing. The structure is part of its charm, although I did find that it was best read in small doses. In the end, I found myself deeply invested in the fate of Kassinger's hybrid citrus tree.
This was a perfect read for spring, and I recommend it to anyone interested in plants!
May 16, 2023
It took me forever to finish this book because of the way it's structured. It essentially feels like three books in one: a compilation of biographies of the people who pioneered the field of botany, actual plant anatomy chapters, and personal anecdotes of the author's botanical adventures.
I found the biography chapters extremely dry, even though they were interesting, and to be fair the chapters about plant anatomy felt as a textbook as well, but I was far more interested in those. The more personal chapters were a lot more engaging in tone, but I think one chapter about giant pumpkins would have been enough. Two were a little overkill.
Overall, I would still strongly recommend this book to anybody who doesn't know where to learn about botany without reading a textbook, but be ready for the unevenness of the pacing and tone.
I found the biography chapters extremely dry, even though they were interesting, and to be fair the chapters about plant anatomy felt as a textbook as well, but I was far more interested in those. The more personal chapters were a lot more engaging in tone, but I think one chapter about giant pumpkins would have been enough. Two were a little overkill.
Overall, I would still strongly recommend this book to anybody who doesn't know where to learn about botany without reading a textbook, but be ready for the unevenness of the pacing and tone.
July 5, 2019
Scientific based with history lessons all about our plant world.
This book is excellent, it's full of educational knowledge. It's perfect for anyone interested in the how's and why's in the science of plants, whether you are a student in botany, horticulture or a plant lover, you will gain a deeper understanding and respect for your house and garden, and wild plants.
This book is a must have!
This book is excellent, it's full of educational knowledge. It's perfect for anyone interested in the how's and why's in the science of plants, whether you are a student in botany, horticulture or a plant lover, you will gain a deeper understanding and respect for your house and garden, and wild plants.
This book is a must have!
July 7, 2014
This book has made me seriously consider handing in my resignation and studying botany, biology and genetic engineering. It touches on the history of science, evolution, genetic modification as well as great introductions to the work and personalities of the many eccentrics and geniuses that have discovered incredible facts about plants.
Like the Diversity of Life by E.O. Wilson it argues, intentionally or not, why we should care about biodiversity. Take the rare shrub, Amborella trichopoda, for instance; it only grows naturally in the cloud forests of New Caledonia in the South Pacific and it may hold the answer to why flowering plants evolved.
Like the Diversity of Life by E.O. Wilson it argues, intentionally or not, why we should care about biodiversity. Take the rare shrub, Amborella trichopoda, for instance; it only grows naturally in the cloud forests of New Caledonia in the South Pacific and it may hold the answer to why flowering plants evolved.
May 13, 2014
i like gardening as much as the next guy and it seemed like a good idea to find out more about what was happening beneath the soil and in between the leaves, but i found myself over my head ... the book is well written and at it's best, when the author talks about her everyday garden experiences, plant murdering, etc. it's pretty fun, but those passages are trapped by overwhelming science principles, scientist bios, the history of the microscope and botanical stuff that asked more from me than i could give
April 13, 2014
A mixed bag. The history of botany and how scientists gradually figured out how plants eat, live and reproduce is fascinating (four stars). The botanical information itself is three stars simply because I already know a lot of it. The personal anecdotes Kassinger presumably thought would help connect with readers are dull and get maybe one star.
August 11, 2025
I learned so much! I skipped large portions that were about her personal stories and background but it was an approachable way to get really great information and history.
November 10, 2014
If NPR wrote a book, it might be like this. The most technical parts sometimes sent my brain wandering off to think of other things, but then the book would snap me back into focus with unusual or wondrous facts that I knew I could whip out at my next social gathering.
Kassinger has done her research, for sure. She describes not only the methods and discoveries in the history of botany, but also the personalities and brief biographies of the researchers who made those discoveries. She also relates the often entertaining misconceptions that preceded each discovery. In several cases, the newly found truth about how a plant works wasn’t really any more reasonable than the initial conjecture; in fact, plant scientists often found that their discoveries met with resistance from believers of the established explanation (surprised?).
A prime example is the borametz, or the vegetable lamb, which Kassinger describes near the beginning of the book. For decades and decades, there was no reason to believe that this plant - a tiny lamb growing on a stalk - wasn’t real in some other part of the world from where people were hearing about it. The author explains how the myth was debunked, but reminds us that the oddness of a supposition is not a scientific criterion for rejecting it: later in the book, she tells of the photosynthesizing sea slug, an actual creature that seems to straddle the border between the plant and animal kingdoms. And she also presents the at-least-as-strange-as-fiction cocktail tree, a citrus tree which has been grafted with multiple cuttings so that from one trunk, it grows multiple species of citrus fruits.
Probably don’t bother with this one unless you’re into plants. But if you’re into plants, go ahead and bother with it.
Kassinger has done her research, for sure. She describes not only the methods and discoveries in the history of botany, but also the personalities and brief biographies of the researchers who made those discoveries. She also relates the often entertaining misconceptions that preceded each discovery. In several cases, the newly found truth about how a plant works wasn’t really any more reasonable than the initial conjecture; in fact, plant scientists often found that their discoveries met with resistance from believers of the established explanation (surprised?).
A prime example is the borametz, or the vegetable lamb, which Kassinger describes near the beginning of the book. For decades and decades, there was no reason to believe that this plant - a tiny lamb growing on a stalk - wasn’t real in some other part of the world from where people were hearing about it. The author explains how the myth was debunked, but reminds us that the oddness of a supposition is not a scientific criterion for rejecting it: later in the book, she tells of the photosynthesizing sea slug, an actual creature that seems to straddle the border between the plant and animal kingdoms. And she also presents the at-least-as-strange-as-fiction cocktail tree, a citrus tree which has been grafted with multiple cuttings so that from one trunk, it grows multiple species of citrus fruits.
Probably don’t bother with this one unless you’re into plants. But if you’re into plants, go ahead and bother with it.
July 11, 2014
This astonishing book opened my eyes about the possibilities that exist for our future.
The biomass grass that produces so much wood [or wood substitute] that you can heat your house all winter by devoting just an acre and a half to growing it. The next Spring, it regrows from the roots. I mentioned this to an aunt, who was disdainful because it was only carbon-neutral, drawing CO2 from the air in the Summer but returning it in the Winter. Nevertheless, that is still better than pulling fossil fuels from the ground and adding CO2 with no way of pulling it out again.
The existence of perennial forms of wheat and other cereal grains. yes, they're harder to harvest, but you don't need to replant them every year, with all the potential for soil erosion and gas-gulping plow machinery that that entails. Scientists are working by conventional means [not Genetically Altered means] to find a useful midway point between the perennial and annual forms.
It's also good to be reminded that until about 150 years ago, plant knowledge that we now take for granted was not available.
The biomass grass that produces so much wood [or wood substitute] that you can heat your house all winter by devoting just an acre and a half to growing it. The next Spring, it regrows from the roots. I mentioned this to an aunt, who was disdainful because it was only carbon-neutral, drawing CO2 from the air in the Summer but returning it in the Winter. Nevertheless, that is still better than pulling fossil fuels from the ground and adding CO2 with no way of pulling it out again.
The existence of perennial forms of wheat and other cereal grains. yes, they're harder to harvest, but you don't need to replant them every year, with all the potential for soil erosion and gas-gulping plow machinery that that entails. Scientists are working by conventional means [not Genetically Altered means] to find a useful midway point between the perennial and annual forms.
It's also good to be reminded that until about 150 years ago, plant knowledge that we now take for granted was not available.
January 10, 2015
Well... kind of boring.
The theme is interesting but the overall concept was a bit to "blah blah blah"... I admire all the work, investigation and reading necessary to write the book but why does the author write about something she doesn't know and smetimes it looks like she doesn't care much?
It's too much about anythind!
Bem, achei o livro aborrecido.
O tema é interessante mas é muita conversa com pouco conteúdo. Admiro todo o trabalho de investigação necessário para escrever um livro deste tipo mas pergunto-me o porquê desta autora escrever sobre coisas que não sabe e que pela "conversa" parece que não se interessa muito?
Como diz o ditado: "Muita parra e pouca uva"!
The theme is interesting but the overall concept was a bit to "blah blah blah"... I admire all the work, investigation and reading necessary to write the book but why does the author write about something she doesn't know and smetimes it looks like she doesn't care much?
It's too much about anythind!
Bem, achei o livro aborrecido.
O tema é interessante mas é muita conversa com pouco conteúdo. Admiro todo o trabalho de investigação necessário para escrever um livro deste tipo mas pergunto-me o porquê desta autora escrever sobre coisas que não sabe e que pela "conversa" parece que não se interessa muito?
Como diz o ditado: "Muita parra e pouca uva"!
May 28, 2014
An excellent book about many areas of botany. Each chapter tells a story, from growing giant pumpkins, to buried arsenals (filled with arsenic).
The book begins with the a murder (of a kumquat) and weaves you through growing grass as biomass, a poisoned neighborhood in Washington DC that is saved by ferns, and how grafting entire orchards is an actual possibility.
As I gardener I loved her fun plant stories, and I learned alot of history. Though she claims to have been a "non science" student, she certainly has done her research. Very interesting read.
The book begins with the a murder (of a kumquat) and weaves you through growing grass as biomass, a poisoned neighborhood in Washington DC that is saved by ferns, and how grafting entire orchards is an actual possibility.
As I gardener I loved her fun plant stories, and I learned alot of history. Though she claims to have been a "non science" student, she certainly has done her research. Very interesting read.
September 28, 2014
Nice blend of botany and history of botany. I actually knew much of this but I'm a little more well read than most on the subject. I was less interested the author's stories of her current life and explorations than I was when the figures in the history of botany and I ended up just skimming them on my way to the meat of the matter - so to speak.
Kind of recommended - more to folks not really looking for an overview of Botany with a capital B but looking more for an enhanced and somewhat eclectic overview of fun things about plants.
Kind of recommended - more to folks not really looking for an overview of Botany with a capital B but looking more for an enhanced and somewhat eclectic overview of fun things about plants.
March 19, 2018
This book is a light read on the history of the development of botany as much as it is about the mechanisms of plants themselves. It is amazing to see, laid out before you, how long it took for anyone to even bother asking what plants really were much less how they worked. The book ends up glossing over much of modern science, undoubtedly because it rapidly becomes too technical as bio-engineering comes into play, but it's otherwise one of the more informative and readable pop science/history books I've read.
July 22, 2018
I really enjoyed this book as it was one of those wonderful non-fiction books that felt personal alongside thoughtful research. The author becomes curious about plants and begins to research the history of botany mixing conversations with experts alongside historical information. I ended up learning a lot about how science has changed about botany as well as seeing how that information is being used now. I'd recommend this book to anyone who gardens and is mystified by their plants as well as anyone who loves the science of how we came to understand something.
December 6, 2017
Onvan : A Garden of Marvels: How We Discovered that Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants - Nevisande : Ruth Kassinger - ISBN : 62048996 - ISBN13 : 9780062048998 - Dar 416 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2014
December 19, 2014
Not sure why it took me so long to read cause it was a really well written book. Informative and funny too. Good anecdotes. Definitely makes me want to learn more.
Read
December 10, 2014Featured on Science for the People show #278 on August 15, 2014, during an interview with author Ruth Kassinger. http://www.scienceforthepeople.ca/epi...
January 20, 2024
the most fascinating book on plant sex i’ve ever come across.
January 7, 2026
"Cyanobacteria lived an easy life. They had no need to chase down prey: They floated at the boundary of their two “foods,” water and atmospheric carbon dioxide, and their energy supply was boundless. They divided and redivided and populations doubled and redoubled, all the while splitting water, fixing carbon dioxide into cell membranes, and popping out pinpricks of oxygen into the water. The numbers of cyanobacteria became incomprehensibly large, but know this: A single bacterium that starts dividing when the sun rises at six o’clock in the morning can, under perfect conditions, become a population of more than 34 billion by the time the sun sets. As the hundreds of millions of years passed, cyanobacteria became so abundant that they formed slimy, floating sheets in the open oceans. In shallow waters off the barren continents, the mats piled up and, interleaved with thin layers of mud and dead bacteria, formed pillows and domes and great reeflike structures called stromatolites that in shallow waters rose above the surface. If you had been able to scan the horizon 2.5 billion years ago, anything you saw that wasn’t water or barren rock was stromatolites. In deeper waters, the mats accumulated in cones and columns as much as a hundred feet high."
Although it's no “Disappearing Spoon,” “A Garden of Marvels” is a fairly entertaining book of a similar style, which is sure to appeal to most non-scientists trying to dig deeper into the subject of botany. Kassinger does incorporate a few too many clunky, hard to parse, and mostly extraneous parentheticals into her--also overly long--sentences. She also gets a bit lost in the weeds (sorry) when it comes to the real nitty gritty of organic chemistry, and specific chemical reactions in living things, to maintain the interest of a more casual reader who is easily overwhelmed by the faint suggestion of mathematics. Overall, though, for a determined reader, this book is full of genuinely very interesting potpourri on a subject that I think most people are surprisingly ignorant about. Really, most humans throughout time have been surprisingly ignorant about plants, particularly given their tremendous importance to our species’s survival, as food, medicine, building material, etc.; as Kassinger points out, even the rudiments of how plants interact with the world and sustain themselves were utterly mysterious until the Age of Enlightenment. I think that might be my biggest takeaway from this book: just how late, and how non-obvious, so much of the scientific understanding of everyday things can be!
Although it's no “Disappearing Spoon,” “A Garden of Marvels” is a fairly entertaining book of a similar style, which is sure to appeal to most non-scientists trying to dig deeper into the subject of botany. Kassinger does incorporate a few too many clunky, hard to parse, and mostly extraneous parentheticals into her--also overly long--sentences. She also gets a bit lost in the weeds (sorry) when it comes to the real nitty gritty of organic chemistry, and specific chemical reactions in living things, to maintain the interest of a more casual reader who is easily overwhelmed by the faint suggestion of mathematics. Overall, though, for a determined reader, this book is full of genuinely very interesting potpourri on a subject that I think most people are surprisingly ignorant about. Really, most humans throughout time have been surprisingly ignorant about plants, particularly given their tremendous importance to our species’s survival, as food, medicine, building material, etc.; as Kassinger points out, even the rudiments of how plants interact with the world and sustain themselves were utterly mysterious until the Age of Enlightenment. I think that might be my biggest takeaway from this book: just how late, and how non-obvious, so much of the scientific understanding of everyday things can be!
January 10, 2020
A Garden of Marvels is a book like none I have ever read. I have read books about nature, science, and plants before, but this one is completely different. For me, it reads like a Mary Roach book. The author, Ruth Kassinger, seems to select her subject and study it to the fullest extent that she can, much like Roach. There is also a lively sort of flair to the majority of the book. She goes to extreme lengths to acquire and keep a cocktail tree. She travels to Canada to learn about this new type of bio-fuel that sounds incredible. She learns about photosynthesizing green sea slugs, first hand. She even sees Black Velvet petunias. Kassinger is dedicated to this topic of botany. And I love it.
I will admit, an avid plant lover that I am, there were times when the history of all the obscure and well-known scientists mad me a little batty. I accept and note their importance in the scheme of things, but it was boring at times. I enjoyed her adventures and I learned many things, I had to take notes because I wanted to remember them (and this is a library book for me, so I can’t write in it and so forth).
I also, as usual, loved the short chapters. When I am busy and I finally sit down to read and the chapter is 50 plus pages, I am defeated before I begin. But a short 5-10-page chapter is wholly acceptable and makes me feel like I am at least treading water in the sea of the book, rather than drowning. I think she proceeds through the parts of plants in a normal and acceptable fashion. And she clearly has done her homework; sharing creative and innovative things that are occurring in science that I would not know of otherwise, I am sure.
Check out this book, I almost didn’t, but I am so glad that I did. It was one of those finds in a library that is always there looking at you, waiting for its chance to impress you.
Content: 5/5
Structure: 5/5
Meets Objectives: 5/5 (Her subtitle explains the goal of the book and she makes her mark.)
Creativity: 5/5 (I cannot stress this enough: A COCKTAIL TREE.)
I will admit, an avid plant lover that I am, there were times when the history of all the obscure and well-known scientists mad me a little batty. I accept and note their importance in the scheme of things, but it was boring at times. I enjoyed her adventures and I learned many things, I had to take notes because I wanted to remember them (and this is a library book for me, so I can’t write in it and so forth).
I also, as usual, loved the short chapters. When I am busy and I finally sit down to read and the chapter is 50 plus pages, I am defeated before I begin. But a short 5-10-page chapter is wholly acceptable and makes me feel like I am at least treading water in the sea of the book, rather than drowning. I think she proceeds through the parts of plants in a normal and acceptable fashion. And she clearly has done her homework; sharing creative and innovative things that are occurring in science that I would not know of otherwise, I am sure.
Check out this book, I almost didn’t, but I am so glad that I did. It was one of those finds in a library that is always there looking at you, waiting for its chance to impress you.
Content: 5/5
Structure: 5/5
Meets Objectives: 5/5 (Her subtitle explains the goal of the book and she makes her mark.)
Creativity: 5/5 (I cannot stress this enough: A COCKTAIL TREE.)
January 11, 2019
A marvellous work! Starting with her garden, she explores the history of plant science through the ages. We mourn the loss of Theophrastus' De Plantis, an ancient Greek work written on papyrus which eventually disintegrated. one surviving observation noted that plants were unlike animals in that they keep growing throughout their lives and can be reproduced by cutting in half.
But soon she moves into modern times, like her interview with Dr. Rufus Chaney, a founding father of phytoremediation. I assume that is the study of how to clean up mankind's messes using well-chosen plants, because the question she presents to him is, "Why do brake ferns pull arsenic out of soil, and such can be used to decontaminate soil and water." (And at the same time, create fern gardens)
Although it turned out his work was primarily on nickel and the Alyssum bertolnii which, under certain conditions, takes up nickel from the soil into the leaves at levels that should have been toxic. Later she notes,
(The discovery of this dual system for taking up inorganic nutrients--effortless osmosis of some molecules and the selective uptake of others--answered a question that had troubled scientists since the ancient Greek era: Do roots actively choose nutrients form the soil or only passively receive them? The answer, we now know, is both.)
So if you're fascinated by plants, you need to read this book. And if not, read it anyway. You'll become so.
But soon she moves into modern times, like her interview with Dr. Rufus Chaney, a founding father of phytoremediation. I assume that is the study of how to clean up mankind's messes using well-chosen plants, because the question she presents to him is, "Why do brake ferns pull arsenic out of soil, and such can be used to decontaminate soil and water." (And at the same time, create fern gardens)
Although it turned out his work was primarily on nickel and the Alyssum bertolnii which, under certain conditions, takes up nickel from the soil into the leaves at levels that should have been toxic. Later she notes,
(The discovery of this dual system for taking up inorganic nutrients--effortless osmosis of some molecules and the selective uptake of others--answered a question that had troubled scientists since the ancient Greek era: Do roots actively choose nutrients form the soil or only passively receive them? The answer, we now know, is both.)
So if you're fascinated by plants, you need to read this book. And if not, read it anyway. You'll become so.
May 30, 2019
This is an interesting study of the history of botany; the technical mechanics of plants, flowers and trees; Kassinger's personal experiences with her "cocktail citrus tree"; and a look at the roots, leaves and mating strategies of plants, all told in short, readable chapters.
"A Garden of Marvels" gave me a new appreciation of the wonders of the world of plants, trees and flowers. The ingenious systems within the botanical world that allow for growth, survival, and propagation were surely designed by a Master Gardener who breathed the breath of life into vegetation and thereby vastly enriched our planet and lives.
I found especially fascinating the lives of the men-- including Joseph Priestly and Charles Darwin-- who advanced human understanding of the vegetable world. Many were clerics and some were hobbyists who had curiosity and leisure to invest in solving riddles. That some of them were from European lower classes and yet found a place in Academies of Science speaks of their lasting contribution to human knowledge.
The author, a researcher/journalist, personally visits several significant pioneers and academics in the field to flesh out the complexities for the average person, and gives a view into cutting edge developments of hybrids, splicing, and bio-engineering. The book includes simple drawings to illustrate what is being described. Only a few times did the text get too technical for me in terms of chemistry.
Very readable, enlightening and entertaining.
"A Garden of Marvels" gave me a new appreciation of the wonders of the world of plants, trees and flowers. The ingenious systems within the botanical world that allow for growth, survival, and propagation were surely designed by a Master Gardener who breathed the breath of life into vegetation and thereby vastly enriched our planet and lives.
I found especially fascinating the lives of the men-- including Joseph Priestly and Charles Darwin-- who advanced human understanding of the vegetable world. Many were clerics and some were hobbyists who had curiosity and leisure to invest in solving riddles. That some of them were from European lower classes and yet found a place in Academies of Science speaks of their lasting contribution to human knowledge.
The author, a researcher/journalist, personally visits several significant pioneers and academics in the field to flesh out the complexities for the average person, and gives a view into cutting edge developments of hybrids, splicing, and bio-engineering. The book includes simple drawings to illustrate what is being described. Only a few times did the text get too technical for me in terms of chemistry.
Very readable, enlightening and entertaining.
July 28, 2019
I was quite interested in the subject, but this is ridiculously low-effort writing. It seems all to be based on Wikipedia trawling, some Googling, and a very few interviews (which were also low effort—she didn't want to miss her flight!). She tells pointless stories about her kids, about other books that she's written, about a friend of a friend who once… After a few pages of this, she'll conclude:
> … I used only clear lip gloss. All of which is to say that in high school chemistry, when it came time to use a pipette to titrate a fluid, I was in trouble.
or
> … Not until their mid-seventies did my mother's arthritis finally end their peregrinations, and they moved to a condo—with no yard—in Fort Myers. All of which is to say, I didn't know if my mother's curiosity about a cleverly constructed cocktail tree would trump her lack of interest in plant care.
I think that if your stories all end up with "all of which is to say," then maybe you can edit them all out.
Here's a gem of an explanation, showing about the level of science Kassinger writes:
> Consider photosynthesis to be a pinball machine. Even if we animals somehow acquired the cabinet (the chloroplast with its stroma and thylakoids), we would still lack the flippers, bumpers, and springs (the enzymes) as well as any written instructions (the DNA) to play a game.
Disappointing.
> … I used only clear lip gloss. All of which is to say that in high school chemistry, when it came time to use a pipette to titrate a fluid, I was in trouble.
or
> … Not until their mid-seventies did my mother's arthritis finally end their peregrinations, and they moved to a condo—with no yard—in Fort Myers. All of which is to say, I didn't know if my mother's curiosity about a cleverly constructed cocktail tree would trump her lack of interest in plant care.
I think that if your stories all end up with "all of which is to say," then maybe you can edit them all out.
Here's a gem of an explanation, showing about the level of science Kassinger writes:
> Consider photosynthesis to be a pinball machine. Even if we animals somehow acquired the cabinet (the chloroplast with its stroma and thylakoids), we would still lack the flippers, bumpers, and springs (the enzymes) as well as any written instructions (the DNA) to play a game.
Disappointing.
May 10, 2020
I'd give it 3.5 if I could. It turns out I'm still just not that interested in botany - this was also true in undergrad, where I made friends with the attendance monitor (the only large college course where they took regular attendance as part of your grade) so I could occasionally bail at the break of the 90 min class because it was just so dull.
The writing is very engaging and appealingly (to me) full of big, obscure words, and not only those directly related to plants. I enjoyed hearing about the people who made the discoveries who paved the way to our current understanding of how plants work. And I was definitely interested in hearing about the cocktail tree, which sounds beautiful (also a little interested in shipping regulations around citrus tbh). It just all ended up being a little sleepy when ingested quickly, as I had to do for book club. I think if I had had a physical book that I could leisurely wend my way through, I might have liked this better. It would be a decent beach read for nerds like me. But in the end, I'm still just not that into the subject matter beyond a nod.
Not a total loss though, because my interest in non-edible plants was roused enough to make me research why my pilea now looks sad (it probably needs fertilizer), and to figure out exactly which variety of snake plant I was given by a parent from work (bird's nest snake plant FYI).
The writing is very engaging and appealingly (to me) full of big, obscure words, and not only those directly related to plants. I enjoyed hearing about the people who made the discoveries who paved the way to our current understanding of how plants work. And I was definitely interested in hearing about the cocktail tree, which sounds beautiful (also a little interested in shipping regulations around citrus tbh). It just all ended up being a little sleepy when ingested quickly, as I had to do for book club. I think if I had had a physical book that I could leisurely wend my way through, I might have liked this better. It would be a decent beach read for nerds like me. But in the end, I'm still just not that into the subject matter beyond a nod.
Not a total loss though, because my interest in non-edible plants was roused enough to make me research why my pilea now looks sad (it probably needs fertilizer), and to figure out exactly which variety of snake plant I was given by a parent from work (bird's nest snake plant FYI).
April 13, 2021
I already owned Kassinger's second memoir and enjoyed the first enough to pick it up. It was definitely an improvement! The writing was more consistently engaging throughout. One chapter about how to grow giant pumpkins was particularly entertaining. I found myself reading almost the whole thing out loud to my husband. It was just so much fun. One of the flaws of the previous book carried through to this one though - the different sections just weren't that well connected! There were two chapters on pumpkins. They weren't adjacent to each other; taught me next to nothing about plant biology; and didn't connect clearly to the plant biology or memoir sections in surrounding chapters. I was also personally disappointed by how much time was devoted to discredited theories of plant biology. Toward the final third of the book, though, there was some fascinating and correct info on plant biology and plant evolution, that I enjoyed only slightly less than the giant pumpkins.This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey
January 20, 2026
As someone with a B.S degree in botany I am always interested in reading books about plants. This one was given to me by a friend and I finally got around to reading it after it was hanging around in my stack for a year or two. It ended up being a very entertaining and enjoyable read. For me the definitions of common botanical terms were superfluous but for those without a degree in the field probably very helpful. She spun a tale with a lot of personal experiences, the history of Botany as a science, and some technical details about how plants work and the science that went into the discoveries. Many of the historical figures were new to me although some such as Darwin were quite familiar. The personal anecdotes were entertaining but often were a bit long and sometimes I wondered about how they were relevant to the story. However, she always tied them in nicely and it gave a nice kind of through-line for the book. Easy to read and most will learn a lot. Highly recommended.
September 28, 2018
Why don't I remember all this fascinating stuff from my biology lessons in high school? Oh, maybe it was not presented in such interesting way and expressed in such humorous, brilliant language? Anyway, I loved reading this book. The title well prepares reader for what's to come. A little bit of this and that, but creating cohesive and loaded with knowledge story. I enjoyed finding out about cultivation of cherry tomatoes, or possibility of Miscanthus grass to be used as a biofuel, and all those other things I had no idea about. The book if fun to read, and provides treasure of factual information.
May 31, 2022
This book brought me so much joy. As someone who has been getting into plants and will be taking a horticultural certification course this summer I was excited to get my brain going on some history of botany. Literally laughed out loud multiple times at Ruth's wonderful sense of humor and personal connections to each and every part of this book. I can't recommend it more to anyone who is at the minimal interested in plants—but honestly I think most anyone would thoroughly enjoy this one. Bravo!!!
March 3, 2018
This was a lovely book to get me through long, cold winter evenings. Equal parts history, hands-on technique, interviews, and personal experience, Kassinger doesn't shy away from science writing, and has a flare for making it palatable for any curious reader. I especially loved the chapters on her citrus cocktail tree and Darwin.
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