Plants: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #312

by Timothy Walker

Plants form a fundamental element of the biosphere, and the evolution of plants has directly affected the evolution of animal life and the evolution of the Earth's climate. Plants have also become essential to humans not only in the form of cereal crops, fruit, and vegetables, but in their many other uses in wood and paper, and in providing medicines. In this Very Short Introduction Timothy Walker, Director of the Botanical Gardens in Oxford, provides a concise account of the nature of plants, their variety and classification, their evolution, and their aesthetic and practical value, stressing the need for their conservation for future generations.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Nature, Plants, Audiobook, Popular Science

129 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2012

Reviews

[Kylee Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this one up as some support reading to my Masters thesis and was pleasantly intrigued throughout. A small taste of my hidden dreams to become a biologist/botanist.

[Bojan Tunguz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plants are, quite literary, everywhere. From the human perspective they are certainly the most recognizable and ubiquitous life form, and they have had an outsize impact on the Earth’s environment and natural history. Plants are essential for our nutrition, and the history of civilization can on one level be understood in terms of our increasing ability to cultivate and harness the plant-based biomass for our survival needs. Plants have also had, and continue to have, a very important role in medicine. This book looks at those aspects of plants, but even more importantly it tries to instill the appreciation for these incredible organisms in their own right.

This book covers some of the most important aspects of the plant biology – the nature and the structure of the plant cell, the evolution of the plant life, and the spread and adaptation of plants to various climates and environments. The most fascinating part of the book is the one that tries to explain the invasion of the land by plants. This is probably one of the most significant events in the natural history, and without it no other kind of land life would have been possible, and you and I would probably not be reading this book. It is quite incredible how many technical problems needed to be resolved for the plants to leave the aquatic environment and successfully adopt themselves for the life on the land. Many of these adaptations we take for granted, if we even think about them (such as the ability of plants to accumulate and store large quantities of water and prevent their desiccation.) This book does a marvelous job of describing these adaptations and putting them within the context of plant biology in general.

For me personally one of the biggest lessons from the reading of this book was the renewed appreciation of the field and “macro” biology. Over the past two decades there has been an increasing pressure in university departments and other scientific organization on the micro and molecular biology. Those are indeed very important and trendy topics, but there is much more to life, and plant life in particular, than what can be deduced from observing it under the microscope or in the test tube. We could be decoding every gene out there until we are blue in face, but if we don’t have a good appreciation for what macroscopic function for the given organism those genes serve, we’ll never be fully able to understand its meaning and purpose. Those macroscopic aspects of biology are still hugely important, and a short book like this one can go a long way of reminding us of their utility and beauty.

Whether you are a plant aficionado or someone who needs to brush up on their high school plant biology, this short book will provide you with a lot of interesting pieces of information and insights into what continues to make plants such an interesting subject of fascination and study.

[Flor de Saepe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides a short, but thorough and scientifically correct introduction to plant evolution, procreation, spread, conservation etc. Morphology is not treated in any detail. Reading especially the first few chapters should not be attempted after 10 PM - a lot of terminology and complex descriptions, relationships and the like are introduced. Occasionally, the author forgets to define a term upon its first occurence, and sometimes, the reader will wait in vain for such a definition to come. But on the whole, this VSI is a well-structured and engaging read, especially because of the author's dry, learned humour. To provide only one example (concerning invasive species): "it is only possible to be wise after the event - it is very much like economics in that respect."

[Sam Bolton · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5)

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The botanist Timothy Walker published Plants: A Very Introduction in 2012. The book has illustrations. The illustrations in the book have an evolutionary “tree of life” graph of plants (Walker 8). The book has an index. The book has a section entitled “further reading” (Walker 123-124). The first chapter defines the concept of plants. The first chapter also covers the evolutionary history of water plants. Chapter 2 is on how plants survive on land. Walker writes, “About 470 million years ago, a plant survived for more than one generation out of the seawater where the green algae had lived for many years” (Walker 24). This chapter also looks at how plants have adapted to living on land. Chapter 3 is on the reproduction of plants. Chapter 4 is on how plants “disperse” or how plants are “moving around” an area (Walker 57). Walker writes, "Dispersal mechanisms will be selected only if they increase the chance of the plant’s genes getting into the next generation” (Walker 57). Chapter 5 is how scientists classify plants. This chapter also covers the history of human-plant classification. Chapter 6 is about how plants interact with humans. The last chapter of the book is about human-plant conservation. Walker’s book is a well-done introduction to botany.

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

Portions of this book carry a very heavy load of specialist vocabulary, to the point where it becomes almost impenetrable to someone lacking training. Part of this may be the nature of the subject. For instance, plants are organised according to shared characteristics, as well as genetic heritage. But nature doesn't always play along, repeatedly abandoning, then rediscovering the same adaptations. This lack of any guiding principles reminds the physicist in me why I hold my nose and walk out of the room whenever I encounter biology.

Not all sections of this book suffer from this drawback (it's mainly, the sections on morphology and reproduction) and the author might have chosen better his material to suit the non specialist reader. I would have enjoyed, for instance, a discussion of the coevolution between plants and other life forms. Why, for example, are plants so often reservoirs of remedies to human diseases. Is it because plants are attacked by the same microbes? But our biologies are too different to account for, say, plants providing medicines to counter Alzheimer's Disease.

[Eloise Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure I enjoyed this book but it does give a good but brief description of the plant kingdom. He does make some good jokes which do lighten the mood. However one of my greatest frustrations was the lack of a glossary as plants, more so than Animalia, have a ridiculous volume of vocabulary. I do not think it would be accessible if you knew nothing at all about plants and wanted a taster. This is on the other hand great for gardeners and biologists.

[Ilya · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book sparkled my curiosity and sent me on Wikipedia knowledge seeking quests, but I wouldn't say it's well written. There's a lot of name dropping of biological terms that hadn't been defined. There are straw man arguments, where instead of addressing the reader, the author seems to address his undergrads and explain why their answers in exams aren't correct. There are several mentions of things the readers "probably remember from school" - I now envy British schools for being so good at teaching biology, because I studied none of these things at my school.
And then, after skimming so briefly and often cryptically over how plants work, in the last chapter the author lists in detail each and every point of the Global Strategy of Plant Conservation. It seems that the author is using this book to report on the progress of an initiative of which he's one of the leaders, but there's no such disclaimer.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book. At times, fascinating. The chapter on the evolutionary challenges plants had to overcome in order to live on land was engrossing. So were the later chapters. At times, however, the book was impenetrably technical. Especially, for a supposed introduction. Chapter 1 gets the book off to a rough, rough start. This chapter's idea of an exciting plot twist is: "However, having recruited one type of prokaryotic organism, the proto-eukaryotic cell recruited another, and this time it was a photosynthetic cyanobacterium" (7). YOU DON'T SAY!?

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Timothy Walker sure knows how to turn a phrase.

This little book was informative as well as entertaining. I really appreciate OUP choosing authors who can use humor to make very academic subjects more accessible and complex concepts easier to understand.

At any rate, if you give this book a go, please do as I did and go further in looking up all of the "botanical weirdos" mentioned. You wont be disappointed. For example, I learned that squirting cucumbers make me very uncomfortable.

[Joe Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good little book, packed full of information. Quite dense in places, hence why I read it slowly over a period of time. It was published 11 years ago and so could do with a thorough review as a lot of the information relating to climate change and habitat loss is out of date, as are some of the botanical and scientific terms used.

[Niphan R Srathongjai · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that most of the botanists should read in order to get the most essential concepts.

[Toasty · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is definitely UK-centric, and focuses on the evolution of plants rather than ecology. But a fun read none the less!

[RuBisCO Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably better introductions to botany but an easy afternoon read

[Clydethebook · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was interesting but not written super well at all. The first half was a real struggle to get through but the 2nd half was actually so good & a brilliant segue into Half Earth by E O Wilson, that I’m now reading. I wish this had half star ratings because this would be closer to 8 than 6 but more like a 7-7.5

[Mills College Library]

580 W185 2012

[Zach Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

the organization/flow didn't work for me. gave up on this one

[Daphne · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the more solid VSI books.

[Skye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good review of alternation of generations. The main focus is on "what is a plant?" and "how do we categorize them?" and ends with conservation.