What the Flora?: Incredible Stories from the Brilliant and Bizarre World of Plants

by Vanessa Fuchs

Get ready for a wild ride through the most shocking, inspiring and downright unbelievable stories about plant life, from the experts at Botanic Gardens of Sydney.This is your backstage pass to the drama, mystery and importance of Earth's most overlooked species. Blending science, true crime, history and a touch of lore, What the Flora? offers a fresh perspective on the ingenuity and wonders of the plant kingdom.

From Australia's wildest landscapes to the farthest reaches of the globe, scientists and plant obsessives are uncovering the weirdest stories and profound truths about plants that will leave you wide-eyed and jaw-dropped.

You'll encounter trees that survived atomic blasts and deadly species that have shaped medicine and myth, discover the mind-bending secrets of plant intelligence and learn how pollen can crack a murder case.

This thrilling journey also reveals the remarkable ways plants have shaped our world: fuelling civilisations, inspiring innovation and sustaining all life on Earth. Our very survival is intertwined with theirs, and protecting plants may be our greatest hope for the future.

Whether you're a hardcore plant nerd or just curious, this book will forever transform the way you see plants.

Genres: Nonfiction

Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2026

About the author

Vanessa Fuchs grew up exploring the Australian bush at her family home in Alligator Creek, Queensland. These early adventures with a camcorder, a love of nature documentaries and a deep appreciation for the environment instilled by her mother, all sparked a lifelong curiosity of the natural world and passion for storytelling. She studied Journalism and Environmental Science, and in 2018, she found her calling as a science communicator at Botanic Gardens of Sydney. To help more people discover the surprising world of plants Vanessa produced and hosted the Garden's award-winning Branch Out podcast. With her trademark blend of enthusiasm and making science fun and accessible, Vanessa loves to make plants the true stars of the natural world – not just the backdrop.

Reviews

[Ellie]

Fascinating! Reviewed for Books+Publishing magazine.

[Kristin]

I don’t read a huge amount of non-fiction, but when I do it tends to be about the natural world. This was a fascinating and pertinent read, written by a science communicator at the Botanic Gardens of Sydney, taking a current day look at the importance of plants with climate crisis on our doorstep, as viewed through an Australian lens. It utilises the idea that knowledge is most powerful in eliciting change when delivered in the form of a well crafted story, and these interesting stories present scientific and historical information in highly accessible language and format.

It looks at many facets of how humanity has interacted with or impacted plants, from the effects of nuclear blasts upon trees, to eco activism, and the benefits plants have provided to us through their medicinal properties. It acknowledges the more integrated kinship that First Nations peoples have with the natural world. It includes fungi, exploring the symbiotic relationships between plants and fungi through networks of mycorrhiza beneath the ground, psychological benefits of psilocybin, breakthroughs in medicine like antibiotics such as penicillin derived from mould. It looks at parasitic plants that cohabit for survival. It admires traits like gigantism in flowering bodies, and the internet and social media buzz surrounding Sydney’s famous corpse flower Putricia. It considers the future of biomimicry and the ways in which plants have inspired design and technology. It touches on the concept of intelligence and interconnected networking in plants, admires the most tenacious plants with ingenious adaptations to the harshest of conditions, and finally discusses forms of plant preservation, such as Herbarium for research and study, and seed vaults conserving species for an uncertain future.

Some of these are the kinds of stories about the natural world that instil a sense of the wondrous, in a way that brings out the kid in me who thrived on the almost otherworldliness of natural history documentaries, somehow made more magical for the fact that these are depictions and descriptions of our actual real world.

[Danyen N]

Oops. I finished this all in one sitting. The pacing is great but what it highlighted the contributions of the amazing people around the world who used their curiosity and passion for plants to learn more in hopes to improve the world.

Of course extra points for mentioning my favourite tree 👏🏻

[Erin]

This is a delightful book for people curious about plants. The audiobook is especially great, read by Vanessa with all her enthusiasm and joy