Henry Whittaker is a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's daughter, Alma, inherits both his money and his brilliant mind, ultimately becoming a botanist of considerable gifts. As Alma's research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of...

Geobiologist Hope Jahren has spent her life studying trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Lab Girl is her revelatory treatise on plant life?but it is also a celebration of the lifelong curiosity, humility, and passion that drive every scientist. In these pages, Hope takes us back to her Minnesota childhood, where she spent hours in unfettered play in her father?s college laboratory. She tells us how she found a sanctuary in science, learning to perform...

"Kellerman now lives a quiet life as a botanist at an idyllic New York college. She largely ignores her status as heiress to the infamous Blackstone dynasty and hopes to keep her family's heartbreak and scandal behind her. Patrick O'Neill survived a hardscrabble youth to become a lawyer for the downtrodden Irish immigrants in his community. He's proud of his work, even though he struggles to afford his ramshackle law office. All that changes when...

"While taking photographs at an exposition in Seattle in 1909, Camera Girl Eleanor Bennett snaps an image of a woman in widow's clothes with deep sorrow etched in her expression and a young infant in her arms. Eleanor longs to study botany at the University of Washington and soon becomes fast friends with botanist Bill Reed, but she can't stop thinking about the widow in the photograph. She is stunned to learn Bill recognizes the woman as the sister-in-law...

"Whether collecting specimens along the banks of the Hudson River, lecturing before a class of rapt medical students, or breaking the fever of a young Philip Hamilton, David Hosack was an American visionary who has been too long forgotten. Alongside other towering figures of the post-Revolutionary generation, he took the reins of a nation. In unearthing the dramatic story of his life, [the author] offers a lush depiction of the man who gave a new...

The true adventures of David Fairchild, a late-nineteenth-century food explorer who traveled the globe and introduced diverse crops like avocados, mangoes, seedless grapes--and thousands more--to the American plate. "In the nineteenth century American meals were about subsistence, not enjoyment. Agriculture yielded stable, basic crops like soybeans, corn, and barley, and few growers considered variety or flavor. But as a new century approached, appetites...