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...

"Welcome to the eighth continent! As a graduate student exploring the rain forests of Australia, Meg Lowman realized that she couldn't monitor her beloved leaves using any of the usual methods. So she put together a climbing kit: she sewed a harness from an old seat belt, gathered hundreds of feet of rope, and found a tool belt for her pencils and rulers. Up she went, into the trees. Forty years later, Lowman remains one of the world's foremost arbornauts,...

Growing up in rural Ontario, Erin Zimmerman became fascinated with plants - an obsession that led to a life in academia as a professional botanist. But as her career choices narrowed in the face of failing institutions and subtle, but ubiquitous, sexism, Zimmerman began to doubt herself. Unrooted: Botany, Motherhood, and the Fight to Save an Old Science is a scientist's memoir, a glimpse into the ordinary life of someone in a fascinating field. This...

"Tells the story of Sara Lemmon, a little-known and under-appreciated woman of both science and art, who did much of the botanical work attributed to her husband, John Lemmon, and in addition, her gift for drawing in the field, combined with her thirst for scientific knowledge, made her "one of the most accurate painters of nature in the State [of California].""--

"Saffron embarks on her first research study alongside the insufferably charming Dr. Michael Lee, traveling the countryside with him in response to reports of poisonings. But when Detective Inspector Green is given a case with a set of unusual clues, he asks for Saffron's assistance. The victims, all women, received bouquets filled with poisonous flowers. Digging deeper, Saffron discovers that the bouquets may be more than just unpleasant flowers--there...