Botanical Riches - New Book of the Month

Botanical Riches: Stories of Botanical Exploration by Richard Aitken (QK5 .A38 2007) catches the eye because of a huge red poinsettia on the cover. Inside, the bright-colored and sepia plates and sketches show plants from ancient times through the twentieth century.

Besides being delightful to look at, this book tells how plants have been used throughout history. We learn that the free-fruiting date palm had sacred significance in what later became Mesopotamia and that it has “perhaps the longest tradition of cultivation of any fruit tree in the Old World.” Throughout the area which gave rise to Islam, fig trees were used for food, shade, and beauty. The Olmecs, forerunners to the Aztecs, were vegetarians who ate maize (which had been domesticated from a wild grass perhaps 8000 years ago), beans, and squash. There are surprising facts in the book: the avocado was cultivated in southern Mexico and Guatemala as long ago as the time of the Olmecs, the sweet potato can be dated to 4000 years ago in coastal Peru, and tomatoes were once regarded as unsafe because of their poisonous cousin, the deadly nightshade.

This beautiful book can grace your coffee table for four weeks when you check it out from the Library.