Flowering Earth [Paperback]

Donald Culross Peattie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 1991

"Even a diehard urbanite would likely be seduced by this extraordinary chronicle of the plant kingdom... " —Publishers Weekly

"... much more than the fascinating story of plant life... It is also a book about the resilience of life itself, the mystery and power of the unseen energy appearing in the visible world in a marvelous variety of forms." —Audubon Naturalist News

"Here is Mr. Peattie at his superb best.... [H]e makes the story of botany and its pursuit as fascinating to the reader as it is to him, and the reading of it a delight." —Hartford Times

"[Peattie] belongs with Gilbert White, Thoreau, John Burroughs, W. H. Hudson, Richard Jeffries, and John Muir." —Mark van Doren

First published in 1939, this beautifully imaginative book is about botany much in the same sense that Walden is about a pond. Part natural history, part biography, and part philosophical reflection, Flowering Earth is written in a warm, lyrical style that made poet-scientist Donald Culross Peattie one of America's best-known naturalist writers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Even a diehard urbanite would likely be seduced by this extraordinary chronicle of the plant kingdom, originally published in 1939 and now back in print. The late Donald Peattie, a botanist and author ( Singing in the Wilderness: A Salute to John James Audubon ), meanders through the plant kingdom, recalling the marvels he has witnessed in vivid, evocative prose ("On icy peaks the sprawling crustose lichen clings where even a mountain goat would gasp and stumble") and explaining the innards and workings of plants with clarity and imaginative images ("the pistil is in general shaped like a carafe or Chianti bottle, with a swollen base which is the ovary proper, containing the ovules or unfertilized egg cells"). He writes of plants that inspire awe, like the mighty Sequoia tree--"unimaginable titans . . . in their uplifted hands they permit the little modern birds . . . to nest and call"--and of more ordinary greens, from seaweed to conifers, but always with the same sense of wonder. Nor does he overlook the lowly weed. With typically wry humor, he observes, "For me, a weed is a plant out of place." Illustrated with woodcuts of plants.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Indiana University Press (October 22, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0253206626
• ISBN-13: 978-0253206626
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,193,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Natural history of plants in lyric form, July 23, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Flowering Earth (Paperback)

Every so often there is a book that is worth reading simply for the pleasure of the words in it, separate from whatever the author is trying to say or tell the reader. This is such a book. The effect is akin to being immersed in the depths of a symphony of words. Otherwise Peattie does an excellent job of explaining the evolution and development of the earths flowering plants. His writing is easily understood and opens botany to the more or less uninformed reader. Read this book for pleasure or for information. You will be pleased you sampled it. This is my second copy. I lent the first out and lost a friend to the book

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ALL LIFE IS ONE, June 29, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Flowering Earth (Paperback)

In this distinguished history of the plant kingdom, Donald Culross Peattie, botanist and nature writer extraordinaire, imaginatively demonstrates that the fates of all living things are bound together. This is nature writing at its best. In the intervening years since this book was written, scientists have made many new discoveries, but few nature writers have surpassed the stylistic beauty and illuminative insight displayed by the author in Flowering Earth. I recommend it to anyone interested in nature. The thoughts expressed are timeless

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another classic from Peattie., April 24, 2005

By 

Paul Forster (Minnesota , USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flowering Earth (Paperback)

Another classic from the great writer/naturalist.This is Peattie's non-technical history of flowering plants,beautifuly written and highly educational,but you don't need to have a degree in botany to understand it.Highly recomended for all nature lovers.