Yale University Library Research Guides: Botany and Plant Sciences Library Resources at Yale: Using the Catalog

Locating Manuals and Guides in the Catalog

The goal of this section of the guide is to give any Yale researcher the tools you need to make effective use of the library's catalog. Because this is botany and plants are rooted in place, we will look at finding information in the catalog with the goal of locating regional information.

Constructing a Search

What You Are Searching: The Catalog Record

Catalog records are made up of specific pieces of information called fields. Each field contains something, like a title, author, place of publication, publisher, or subject. These record evolved from machine-readable standards in use after the mid-1960s. The benefits of this approach include the ability to search specific fields for nuggets of important information. The downsides of this approach include the human mediation (a person creates the records, either alone or with machine augmentation) and the variability that creates — more recent catalog records are often more thorough (and longer!) than older catalog records, and the ways that subjects are assigned to books may have changed over time.

The search box in Quicksearch Books+ (bookmark this URL: https://search.library.yale.edu/catalog) allows you to search in "All Fields" (which, as the name suggests, searches everything — including descriptive information about chapter contents that is in some records) or in a specific field. The example search below for (botany OR plants) AND "new england" will surface any book that have those words in the title.

I could also decide to do a subject search with the same thing in the search box. This will further limit the results, although anything without New England in the subject will not show up.

Advanced search will let me combine different field searches. The advanced search below looks for (botany OR plants) in the subject and "new england" anywhere in the record. Advanced Search can be found to the right of the search box. You only need to fill in the advanced search boxes that are relevant to you.

Call number classifications can also help you locate books. Botany is the QK range in the Library of Congress system; any numbers appended to that line indicate a subset. QK121 is for New England as an entity. This will not work for ebooks, which do not have call numbers when we add them to the catalog.

Try It!

If you want to get started with subject browsing and digital serendipity in the catalog, here are some selected books where you might start. They have been selected for their breadth of topics. Some of these books are available in both print and e formats; in those cases, the e-version has been included for accessibility.

100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names by Diana Wells; Ippy Patterson (Illustrator)
Call Number: QK13 W46X 1997
ISBN: 1565121384
Publication Date: 1997-01-02
Illustrations by Ippy Patterson. From Baby Blue Eyes to Silver Bells, from Abelia to Zinnia, every flower tells a story. Gardening writer Diana Wells knows them all. Here she presents one hundred well-known garden favorites and the not-so-well-known stories behind their names. Not for gardeners only, this is a book for anyone interested not just in the blossoms, but in the roots, too.
Annual Plant Reviews, the Evolution of Plant Form by Barbara A. Ambrose (Editor); Michael D. Purugganan (Editor)
Call Number: QK980 .E87X 2013
ISBN: 9781444330014
Publication Date: 2013-02-04
The Evolution of Plant Form is an exceptional new volume in Wiley-Blackwell's highly successful and well established Annual Plant Reviews. Written by recognised and respected researchers, this book delivers a comprehensive guide to the diverse range of scientific perspectives in land plant evolution, from morphological evolution to the studies of the mechanisms of evolutionary change and the tools with which they can be studied. This title distinguishes itself from others in plant evolution through its synthesis of these ideas, which then provides a framework for future studies and exciting new developments in this field. The first chapter explores the origins of the major morphological innovations in land plants and the following chapters provide an exciting, in depth analysis of the morphological evolution of land plant groups including bryophytes, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms. The second half of the book focuses on evolutionary studies in land plants including genomics, adaptation, development and phenotypic plasticity. The final chapter provides a summary and perspective for future studies in the evolution of plant form. The Evolution of Plant Form provides essential information for plant scientists and evolutionary biologists. All libraries and research establishments, where biological and agricultural sciences are studied and taught, will find this important work a vital addition to their shelves.
Biology of Algae, Lichens and Bryophytes by Burkhard Büdel (Editor); Thomas Friedl (Editor); Wolfram Beyschlag (Editor)
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9783662657119
Publication Date: 2024-03-07
As a reader of this book you will become familiar with current, up-to-date comprehensive knowledge about all classes of eukaryotic algae, the cyanobacteria, and symbiotic interactions of algae and cyanobacteria with other organisms. For example, the lichens are symbiotic consortia and a prominent example of a particularly successful 'evolution by cooperation'. We expand even to the beginnings of terrestrial plant life and the bryophytes, which are gradually transmitting to the vascular plants. We collectively call this enormous phylogenetic wealth of photoautotrophic organisms the 'new cryptogams', abandoning the traditional definition of cryptogams. The new cryptogams are all those autotrophic organisms that share being hydro-passive, meaning that they are unable of controlling water uptake or release, in contrast to vascular plants. While being basal of and phylogenetically much more diverse than the vascular plants, the new cryptogams are ecologically highly relevant in all ecosystems of our Planet. They are responsible for more than half of the Earth's annual oxygen production.
Botany of Empire by Banu Subramaniam (Series edited by); Rebecca Herzig (Series edited by)
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9780295752471
Publication Date: 2024-06-25
An accessible foray into botany's origins and how we can transform its future Colonial ambitions spawned imperial attitudes, theories, and practices that remain entrenched within botany and across the life sciences. Banu Subramaniam draws on fields as disparate as queer studies, Indigenous studies, and the biological sciences to explore the labyrinthine history of how colonialism transformed rich and complex plant worlds into biological knowledge. Botany of Empire demonstrates how botany's foundational theories and practices were shaped and fortified in the aid of colonial rule and its extractive ambitions. We see how colonizers obliterated plant time's deep history to create a reductionist system that imposed a Latin-based naming system, drew on the imagined sex lives of European elites to explain plant sexuality, and discussed foreign plants like foreign humans. Subramanian then pivots to imagining a more inclusive and capacious field of botany untethered and decentered from its origins in histories of racism, slavery, and colonialism. This vision harnesses the power of feminist and scientific thought to chart a course for more socially just practices of experimental biology. A reckoning and a manifesto, Botany of Empire provides experts and general readers alike with a roadmap for transforming the colonial foundations of plant science.
Computational Botany by Paolo Remagnino; Simon Mayo; Paul Wilkin; James Cope; Don Kirkup
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9783662537459
Publication Date: 2017-01-17
This book discusses innovative methods for mining information from images of plants, especially leaves, and highlights the diagnostic features that can be implemented in fully automatic systems for identifying plant species. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, it explores the problem of plant species identification, covering both the concepts of taxonomy and morphology. It then provides an overview of morphometrics, including the historical background and the main steps in the morphometric analysis of leaves together with a number of applications. The core of the book focuses on novel diagnostic methods for plant species identification developed from a computer scientist's perspective. It then concludes with a chapter on the characterization of botanists' visions, which highlights important cognitive aspects that can be implemented in a computer system to more accurately replicate the human expert's fixation process. The book not only represents an authoritative guide to advanced computational tools for plant identification, but provides experts in botany, computer science and pattern recognition with new ideas and challenges. As such it is expected to foster both closer collaborations and further technological developments in the emerging field of automatic plant identification.
Darwin's Most Wonderful Plants by Ken Thompson
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9780226675701
Publication Date: 2019-10-07
"A survey of the botanical experimenting and theorizing that occupied Darwin's golden years. . . . with expert evolutionary commentary." --New York Review of BooksFor many people, Charles Darwin's trip to Galapagos Islands on the Beagle, where he saw a biodiversity of birds, inspired him to write his theory of evolution. But this simplified narrative leaves out a major part of Darwin's legacy. He published On the Origin of Species nearly thirty years after his voyages. And much of his life was spent experimenting with and observing plants.Darwin was a brilliant and revolutionary botanist whose observations and theories were far ahead of his time. With Darwin's Most Wonderful Plants, biologist and gardening expert Ken Thompson restores this important aspect of Darwin's biography while also delighting in the botanical world that captivated the famous scientist. We learn from Thompson how Darwin used plants to shape his most famous theory and then later how he used that theory to further push the boundaries of botanical knowledge. Both Thompson and Darwin share a love for our most wonderful plants and the remarkable secrets they can unlock. This book will instill that same joy in casual gardeners and botany aficionados alike."In this quietly riveting study, plant biologist Ken Thompson reveals Charles Darwin as a botanical revolutionary." --Nature"This is a fascinating insight into the scientist's sheer delight in observing the minutiae of living organisms." --Gardens Illustrated"Thompson revisits Darwin's botany, showing us how insightful he was, where (rarely) he was wrong and the marvelous discoveries that have been made since. . . . Darwin himself would have loved this book." --Jonathan Silvertown, author of Dinner with Darwin: Food, Drink, and Evolution
Florapedia by Amy Jean Porter (Illustrator); Carol Gracie
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9780691217543
Publication Date: 2021-04-06
A delightful illustrated treasury of botanical facts and fancy Florapedia is an eclectic A-Z compendium of botanical lore. With more than 100 enticing entries--on topics ranging from achlorophyllous plants that use a fungus as an intermediary to obtain nutrients from other plants to zygomorphic flowers that admit only the most select pollinators--this collection is a captivating journey into the realm of botany. Writing in her incomparably engaging style, Carol Gracie discusses remarkable plants from around the globe, botanical art and artists, early botanical explorers, ethnobotanical uses of plants, botanical classification and terminology, the role of plants in history, and more. She shares illuminating facts about van Gogh's sunflowers and reveals how a hallucinogenic weed left its enduring mark on the early history of the Jamestown colony. Gracie describes the travels of John and William Bartram--father and son botanists and explorers who roamed widely in early America in search of plants--and delves into the miniature ecosystems entangled in Spanish moss. The book's convenient size allows for it to be tucked into a pocket or bag, making it the perfect companion on your own travels. With charming drawings by Amy Jean Porter, Florapedia is the ideal gift book for the plant enthusiast in your life and a rare pleasure for anyone interested in botanical art, history, medicine, or exploration. Features a cloth cover with an elaborate foil-stamped design
Gardens of the Roman Empire by Wilhelmina Feemster Jashemski (Editor); Kathryn L. Gleason (Editor); Kim J. Hartswick (Editor); Amina-Aïcha Malek (Editor)
Call Number: SB458.55 .G37 2018
ISBN: 9780521821612
Publication Date: 2017-12-28
In Gardens of the Roman Empire, the pioneering archaeologist Wilhelmina F. Jashemski sets out to examine the role of ancient Roman gardens in daily life throughout the empire. This study, therefore, includes for the first time, archaeological, literary, and artistic evidence about ancient Roman gardens across the entire Roman Empire from Britain to Arabia. Through well-illustrated essays by leading scholars in the field, various types of gardens are examined, from how Romans actually created their gardens to the experience of gardens as revealed in literature and art. Demonstrating the central role and value of gardens in Roman civilization, Jashemski and a distinguished, international team of contributors have created a landmark reference work that will serve as the foundation for future scholarship on this topic. An accompanying digital catalogue will be made available at: www.gardensoftheromanempire.org.
High-Throughput Plant Phenotyping by Argelia Lorence (Editor); Karina Medina Jimenez (Editor)
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9781071625361
Publication Date: 2022-07-28
This volume looks at a collection of the latest techniques used to quantify the genome-by-environment-by-management (GxExM) interactions in a variety of model and plant crops. The chapters in this book are organized into five parts. Part One discusses high-throughput plant phenotyping (HTPP) protocols for plants growing under controlled conditions. Part Two present novel algorithms for extracting data from seed images, color analysis from fruits, and other digital readouts from 2D objects. Part Three covers molecular imaging protocols using PET and X-ray approaches, and Part Four presents a collection of HTPP techniques for crops growing under field conditions. The last part focuses on molecular analysis, metabolomics, network analysis, and statistical methods for the quantitative genetic analysis of HTP data. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting-edge and practical, High-Throughput Plant Phenotyping: Review and Protocols is a valuable resource for both novice and expert researchers looking to learn more about this important field. Chapter 21 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
How the Earth Turned Green by Joseph E. Armstrong
Call Number: QK45.2 .A76X 2014
ISBN: 9780226069630
Publication Date: 2014-10-02
On this blue planet, long before pterodactyls took to the skies and tyrannosaurs prowled the continents, tiny green organisms populated the ancient oceans. Fossil and phylogenetic evidence suggests that chlorophyll, the green pigment responsible for coloring these organisms, has been in existence for some 85% of Earth's long history-that is, for roughly 3.5 billion years. In How the Earth Turned Green, Joseph E. Armstrong traces the history of these verdant organisms, which many would call plants, from their ancient beginnings to the diversity of green life that inhabits the Earth today. Using an evolutionary framework, How the Earth Turned Green addresses questions such as: Should all green organisms be considered plants? Why do these organisms look the way they do? How are they related to one another and to other chlorophyll-free organisms? How do they reproduce? How have they changed and diversified over time? And how has the presence of green organisms changed the Earth's ecosystems? More engaging than a traditional textbook and displaying an astonishing breadth, How the Earth Turned Green will both delight and enlighten embryonic botanists and any student interested in the evolutionary history of plants.
The Imagination of Plants by Matthew Hall
Call Number: BL325.P6 H35 2019
ISBN: 9781438474373
Publication Date: 2019-07-01
Plants have a remarkable mythology dating back thousands of years. From the ancient Greeks to contemporary Indigenous cultures, human beings have told colorful and enriching stories that have presented plants as sensitive, communicative, and intelligent. This book explores the myriad of plant tales from around the world and the groundbreaking ideas that underpin them. Amid the key themes of sentience and kinship, it connects the anemone to the meaning of human life, tree hugging to the sacred basil of India, and plant intelligence with the Finnish epic The Kalevala. Bringing together commentary, original source material, and colorful illustrations, Matthew Hall challenges our perspective on these myths, the plants they feature, and the human beings that narrate them.
In the Herbarium by Maura C. Flannery
Call Number: QK75 .F53 2023
ISBN: 9780300247916
Publication Date: 2023-05-30
How herbaria illuminate the past and future of plant science Collections of preserved plant specimens, known as herbaria, have existed for nearly five centuries. These pressed and labeled plants have been essential resources for scientists, allowing them to describe and differentiate species and to document and research plant changes and biodiversity over time--including changes related to climate. Maura C. Flannery tells the history of herbaria, from the earliest collections belonging to such advocates of the technique as sixteenth-century botanist Luca Ghini, to the collections of poets, politicians, and painters, and to the digitization of these precious specimens today. She charts the growth of herbaria during the Age of Exploration, the development of classification systems to organize the collections, and herbaria's indispensable role in the tracking of climate change and molecular evolution. Herbaria also have historical, aesthetic, cultural, and ethnobotanical value--these preserved plants can be linked to the Indigenous peoples who used them, the collectors who sought them out, and the scientists who studied them. This book testifies to the central role of herbaria in the history of plant study and to their continued value, not only to biologists but to entirely new users as well: gardeners, artists, students, and citizen-scientists.
Iwigara by Enrique Salmon
Call Number: GN476.73 .S345 2020
ISBN: 9781604698800
Publication Date: 2020-09-15
"A beautiful catalogue of 80 plants, revered by indigenous people for their nourishing, healing, and symbolic properties." --Gardens Illustrated The belief that all life-forms are interconnected and share the same breath--known in the Rarámuri tribe as iwígara--has resulted in a treasury of knowledge about the natural world, passed down for millennia by native cultures. Ethnobotanist Enrique Salmón builds on this concept of connection and highlights 80 plants revered by North America's indigenous peoples. Salmón teaches us the ways plants are used as food and medicine, the details of their identification and harvest, their important health benefits, plus their role in traditional stories and myths. Discover in these pages how the timeless wisdom of iwígara can enhance your own kinship with the natural world.
Kaplan's Principles of Plant Morphology by Donald Kaplan; Chelsea D. Specht
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9781482245226
Publication Date: 2022-03-02
Kaplan's Principles of Plant Morphology defines the field of plant morphology, providing resources, examples, and theoretical constructs that illuminate the foundations of plant morphology and clearly outline the importance of integrating a fundamental understanding of plant morphology into modern research in plant genetics, development, and physiology. As research on developmental genetics and plant evolution emerges, an understanding of plant morphology is essential to interpret developmental and morphological data. The principles of plant morphology are being brought into studies of crop development, biodiversity, and evolution during climate change, and increasingly such researchers are turning to old texts to uncover information about historic research on plant morphology. Hence, there is great need for a modern reference and textbook that highlights past studies and provides the synthesis of data necessary to drive our future research in plant morphological and developmental evolution. Key Features Numerous illustrations demonstrating the principles of plant morphology Historical context for interpretations of more recent genetic data Firmly rooted in the principles of studying plant form and function Provides evolutionary framework without relying on evolutionary interpretations for plant form Only synthetic treatment of plant morphology on the market Related Titles Les, D. H. Aquatic Dicotyledons of North America: Ecology, Life History, and Systematics (ISBN 978-1-4822-2502-0) Les, D. H. Aquatic Monotyledons of North America: Ecology, Life History, and Systematics (ISBN 978-1-1380-5493-6) Bowes, B. G. Colour Atlas of Woody Plants and Trees (ISBN 978-0-3674-7398-3) Bahadur, B. et al., eds. Asymmetry in Plants: Biology of Handedness (ISBN 978-1-1385-8794-6)
A Lab for All Seasons by Sharon E. Kingsland
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9780300267211
Publication Date: 2023-07-25
The first book to chronicle how innovation in laboratory designs for botanical research energized the emergence of physiological plant ecology as a vibrant subdiscipline Laboratory innovation since the mid-twentieth century has powered advances in the study of plant adaptation, evolution, and ecosystem function. The phytotron, an integrated complex of controlled-environment greenhouse and laboratory spaces, was invented by Frits W. Went at the California Institute of Technology in the 1950s, setting off a worldwide laboratory movement, and transforming the plant sciences. Sharon Kingsland explores this revolution through a comparative study of work in the United States, France, Australia, Israel, the USSR, and Hungary--in the latter two, offering new interpretations of the response to Lysenkoism in Communist states. These advances in botanical research energized physiological plant ecology. Case studies explore the development of phytotron spin-offs such as mobile laboratories, rhizotrons, and ecotrons. Scientific problems include the significance of plant emissions of volatile organic compounds, symbiosis between plants and soil fungi, and the discovery of new pathways for photosynthesis as an adaptation to hot, dry climates. The advancement of knowledge through synthesis is a running theme: linking disciplines, combining laboratory and field research, and moving across ecological scales from leaf to ecosystem. The book also charts the history of modern scientific responses to the emerging crisis of food insecurity in the era of global warming. The book A Lab for All Seasons is also available in print.
North American Cornucopia by Ernest Small
Call Number: QK98.5.N57 S67 2013
ISBN: 9781466585928
Publication Date: 2013-09-23
Many North American plants have characteristics that are especially promising for creating varieties needed to expand food production, and there are excellent prospects of generating new economically competitive crops from these natives. The inadequacy of current crops to meet the food demands of the world's huge, growing population makes the potential of indigenous North American food plants even more significant. These plants can also generate crops that are more compatible with the ecology of the world, and many also have inherent health benefits. Presenting detailed scholarship, a thoroughly accessible style, and numerous entertaining anecdotes, North American Cornucopia: Top 100 Indigenous Food Plants is a full-color book dedicated to the most important 100 native food plants of North America north of Mexico that have achieved commercial success or have substantial market potential. The introductory chapter reviews the historical development of North American indigenous crops and factors bearing on their future economic success. The rest of the book consists of 100 chapters, each dedicated to a particular crop. The book employs a user-friendly chapter format that presents the material in sections offering in-depth coverage of each plant. The first section of each chapter provides information on the scientific and English names of the plants, followed by a section on the geography and ecology of the wild forms, accompanied by a map showing the North American distribution. A section entitled "Plant Portrait" comprises a basic description of the plant, its history, and its economic and social importance. This is followed by "Culinary Portrait," concerned with food uses and culinary vocabulary. The chapters then provide an analysis of the economic future of each crop, discuss notable and interesting scientific or technological observations and accomplishments, and present extensive references.
Ordering the Myriad Things by Nicholas K. Menzies; K. Sivaramakrishnan (Series edited by, Foreword by)
Call Number: QK21.C6 M46 2021
ISBN: 9780295749457
Publication Date: 2021-11-24
Longlisted for the 2024 SHNH Natural History Book Prize An exploration of plant wisdom, from the Southern Mountain Tea Flower to the Dawn Redwood China?s vast and ancient body of documented knowledge about plants includes horticultural manuals and monographs, comprehensive encyclopedias, geographies, and specialized anthologies of verse and prose written by keen observers of nature. Until the late nineteenth century, however, standard practice did not include deploying a set of diagnostic tools using a common terminology and methodology to identify and describe new and unknown species or properties. Ordering the Myriad Things relates how traditional knowledge of plants in China gave way to scientific botany between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, when plants came to be understood in a hierarchy of taxonomic relationships to other plants and within a broader ecological context. This shift not only expanded the universe of plants beyond the familiar to encompass unknown species and geographies but fueled a new knowledge of China itself. Nicholas K. Menzies highlights the importance of botanical illustration as a tool for recording nature?contrasting how images of plants were used in the past to the conventions of scientific drawing and investigating the transition of ?traditional? systems of organization, classification, observation, and description to ?modern? ones.
Plant Cell Culture Protocols by Víctor M. Loyola-Vargas (Editor); Neftalí Ochoa-Alejo (Editor)
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9781493985937
Publication Date: 2018-07-07
This fourth edition provides new and updated protocols on plant cell, tissue, and organ cultures. Chapters are divided into five parts that cover topics from general methodologies, statistical analysis and contamination control, highly specialized techniques, and laborious process of measuring the epigenetics changes in tissue cultures. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Plant Cell Culture Protocols, Fourth Edition aims to serve both professionals and novices with its guide to the most common and applicable techniques and methods for plant tissue and cell culture.
Plant Genetic Conservation by Nigel Maxted; Brian Ford-Lloyd; Michael Kearsey; Harpal Pooni; Michael Lawrence
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9780521806565
Publication Date: 2020-09-10
Plant diversity sustains all animal life, and the genetic diversity within plants underpins global food security. This text provides a practical and theoretical introduction to the strategies and actions to adopt for conserving plant genetic variation, as well as explaining how humans can exploit this diversity for sustainable development. Notably readable, it initially offers current knowledge on the characterization and evaluation of plant genetic resources. The authors then discuss strategies from in situ and ex situ conservation to crop breeding, exploring how these can be used to improve food security in the face of increasing agrobiodiversity loss, human population growth and climate change. Each chapter draws on examples from the literature or the authors' research and includes further reading references. Containing other useful features such as a glossary, it is invaluable for professionals and undergraduate and graduate students in plant sciences, ecology, conservation, genetics and natural resource management.
Plants: a Very Short Introduction by Timothy Walker
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9780199584062
Publication Date: 2012-05-04
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. We also have Plants: A Very Short Introduction in print.
Plants as Persons by Matthew Hall
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9781438434292
Publication Date: 2011-05-06
Plants are people too? No, but in this work of philosophical botany Matthew Hall challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants, arguing that they are other-than-human persons. Plants constitute the bulk of our visible biomass, underpin all natural ecosystems, and make life on Earth possible. Yet plants are considered passive and insensitive beings rightly placed outside moral consideration. As the human assault on nature continues, more ethical behavior toward plants is needed. Hall surveys Western, Eastern, Pagan, and Indigenous thought as well as modern science for attitudes toward plants, noting the particular resources for plant personhood and those modes of thought which most exclude plants. The most hierarchical systems typically put plants at the bottom, but Hall finds much to support a more positive view of plants. Indeed, some indigenous animisms actually recognize plants as relational, intelligent beings who are the appropriate recipeints of care and respect. New scientific findings encourage this perspective, revealing that plants possess many of the capacities of sentience and mentality traditionally denied them.
Plants of the World by Maarten J. M. Christenhusz; Michael F. Fay; Mark W. Chase
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9781842466346
Publication Date: 2017-11-13
This is the first comprehensive book to cover every vascular plant family in the world, including all families of lycopods, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms. Organised in a modern phylogenetic order (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group IV for flowering plants and equivalent systems for other groups), over 450 families are described in this illustrated encyclopedia, with full information relating to their characteristics, relationships, etymology, economic uses and distribution. Written by three world-renowned authors with wide interests in plant relationships, horticulture and modern genetic approaches to the study of biodiversity, the descriptions are accompanied by a lavish selection of photographs, illustrations and maps. Many of the illustrations are the work of the first author, Maarten Christenhusz, who is an accomplished photographer as well as a botanist. This authoritative, comprehensive and beautiful book will appeal to a wide audience, from undergraduate students to practising botanists and horticulturists as well as interested amateurs. Plants of the World is also available in print if you prefer that medium.
Plant Structural Biology: Hormonal Regulations by Jan Hejátko (Editor); Toshio Hakoshima (Editor)
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9783319913513
Publication Date: 2018-09-07
After decades of dominance of genetics and genomics, the importance of structural biology is growing exponentially in the field of plant biology. The main objectives of this new book series is to "demystify" structural biology for plant researchers and to provide important insights into the basic molecular mechanisms underlying plant development through the diverse approaches utilized by structural biologists. The book series starts with a theme dedicated to hormonal signaling that has benefited from the application of structural biology. "Plant Structural Biology: Hormonal Regulations" provides up-to-date knowledge of the structural aspects of hormonal signal recognition, signal transduction, hormonal control of downstream regulatory pathways and hormonal crosstalk. The most distinctive features of this book as well as future titles is/will be to provide overview of cutting-edge research in the field of plant structural biology, and to serve as a compendium of various approaches that could be applied to problems being solved in modern plant biology. Last but not least, we hope this book will facilitate and broaden the community of (not only) plant scientists who are interested in structural biology approaches and tools. For these reasons, the style of this series is concise and general, in order to avoiding unnecessary details. Explanatory boxes describing the basics of specific approaches (e.g. X-ray crystallography, NMR, SAXS, molecular dynamics simulations, etc.) are included.
The Plant Thieves by Prue Gibson
Call Number: QK75 .G53 2023
ISBN: 9781742237688
Publication Date: 2023-05-01
The Plant Thieves reveals remarkable stories from the National Herbarium of New South Wales - its people, its archives and its most guarded specimens. Who gets to collect plants, name them, propagate them, extract their chemicals, sell them and use them? Whose knowledge is it? And what can the people that work with plants, just outside the law, teach us about plant care? In The Plant Thieves, Prudence Gibson explores the secrets of the National Herbarium of New South Wales and unearths remarkable stories of plant naming wars, rediscovered lost species, First Nations agriculture, illegal drug labs and psychoactive plant knowledge. Gibson reveals the tale of the anti-inflammatory plant that saved a herbarium manager when she was collecting in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, stories about the secret wollemi pine plantation (from one of its botanical guardians) and the truth about a beach daisy that has changed so much in 100 years that it needs to be completely reclassified. She also follows the story of the black bean Songline, a recent collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, to find the route of this important agriculture plant. The Plant Thieves is both a lament for lost and disappearing species and a celebration of being human, of wanting to collect things and of learning more about plant life and ourselves.
Radical Botany by Natania Meeker; Antónia Szabari
Call Number: ONLINE BOOK
ISBN: 9780823286638
Publication Date: 2019-12-03
Winner, 2019 Science Fiction & Technoculture Studies Book Prize Radical Botany excavates a tradition in which plants participate in the effort to imagine new worlds and envision new futures. Modernity, the book claims, is defined by the idea of all life as vegetal. Meeker and Szabari argue that the recognition of plants' liveliness and animation, as a result of scientific discoveries from the seventeenth century to today, has mobilized speculative creation in fiction, cinema, and art. Plants complement and challenge notions of human life. Radical Botany traces the implications of the speculative mobilization of plants for feminism, queer studies, and posthumanist thought. If, as Michael Foucault has argued, the notion of the human was born at a particular historical moment and is now nearing its end, Radical Botany reveals that this origin and endpoint are deeply informed by vegetality as a form of pre- and posthuman subjectivity. The trajectory of speculative fiction which this book traces offers insights into the human relationship to animate matter and the technological mediations through which we enter into contact with the material world. Plants profoundly shape human experience, from early modern absolutist societies to late capitalism's manipulations of life and the onset of climate change and attendant mass extinction. A major intervention in critical plant studies, Radical Botany reveals the centuries-long history by which science and the arts have combined to posit plants as the model for all animate life and thereby envision a different future for the cosmos.
Reaching for the Sun by John King
Call Number: QK50 .K46X 2011
ISBN: 9780521518048
Publication Date: 2011-01-06
From their ability to use energy from sunlight to make their own food, to combating attacks from diseases and predators, plants have evolved an amazing range of life-sustaining strategies. Written with the non-specialist in mind, John King's lively natural history explains how plants function, from how they gain energy and nutrition to how they grow, develop and ultimately die. New to this edition is a section devoted to plants and the environment, exploring how problems created by human activities, such as global warming, pollution of land, water and air, and increasing ocean acidity, are impacting on the lives of plants. King's narrative provides a simple, highly readable introduction, with boxes in each chapter offering additional or more advanced material for readers seeking more detail. He concludes that despite the challenges posed by growing environmental perils, plants will continue to dominate our planet.
Roots to Seeds by Stephen A. Harris
Call Number: QK21.G7 H37 2021
ISBN: 9781851245611
Publication Date: 2021-07-22
Since 1621, and the foundation of the Oxford Botanic Garden, Oxford has built up an outstanding collection of plant specimens, botanical illustrations and rare books on plant classification, collecting and plant biology. These archives, and the living plants in the Garden, are integral to the study of botany in the University.This book profiles the botanists and collections which have helped to transform our understanding of the biology of plants over the past four centuries, focusing on plant classification, experimental botany, building botanical collections, agriculture and forestry and botanical education. Highlights include a selection of Ferdinand Bauer's renowned illustrations for Flora Graeca - an extraordinarily lavish and detailed eighteenth-century botanical publication of plants found in the Eastern Mediterranean - and rare plant specimens from the herbaria, such as Fairchild's Mule (the first artificially created hybrid plant). Together with seventeenth-century herbals, elegant garden plans, plant models and fossil slides, these items from the archives all help to tell the story of botanical science in Oxford and the intrepid botanists who devoted themselves to the essential study of plants.