Capturing plant intrigue

Abstract

A new book follows on from a series that has proved a benchmark in biological illustration. The Bizarre and Incredible World of Plants is the latest volume to use colour to enhance some of the most spectacularly hidden but vital aspects in the life of plants previously unknown outside a small botanical community. In one sense the book, and its predecessors, hark back to the nineteenth and early twentieth century enthusiasm for the plant world amongst the public. It has been produced by botanists Wolfgang Stuppy and Madeline Harley with artist Rob Kessler. Plants have evolved a sophisticated spectrum of colour-coded messages to attract animals to ensure the pollination of their flowers and the dispersal of their seeds, the authors write. In this book, the artist has again used colour to enhance the electron micrographs of many plant features and details of their reproduction. “Our work results from an enthusiasm to communicate and express our shared passion and fascination for the beauty of sexual reproduction among flowering plants,” the authors write. Their aim is to engage audiences for the research and conservation work in the plant sciences carried out throughout the world. And they particularly hope to flag up the work of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the Millenium Seed Project, one of the world's largest international conservation initiatives, and source of much material used in the book. Because most of the world's food and medicines come from nature, protecting plant species is critical, scientists say. The Millennium Seed Project is hoping to store seed from all of the known 300,000 plant species around the world. The project is on track to collect 10 per cent of the total by next year. There are 1,400 other seed banks in the world that store about 0.6 per cent of the world's plant diversity. The Millennium Seed Project aims to collect the rest. And the authors of the new book hope to engage readers in the remarkable structure of plants.