The Cabaret of Plants by Mabey, Richard -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

1. Symbols from the Ice: Plants as Food and Forms 2. Bird’s-Eyes: Primulas

Wooden Manikins: The Cults of Trees

3. The Cult of Celebrity: The Fortingall Yew 4. The Rorschach Tree: Baobab 5. The Big Trees: Sequoias 6. Methuselahs: Bristlecones and Date Palms 7. Provenance and Extinction: Wood’s Cycad 8. From Workhorse to Green Man: The Oak

Myths of Cultivation

9. The Celtic Bush: Hazel 10. The Vegetable Lamb: Cotton 11. Staff of Life: Maize 12. The Panacea: Ginseng 13. The Vegetable Mudfish: Samphire

The Shock of the Real: Scientists and Romantics

14. Life versus Entropy: Newton’s Apple 15. Intimations of Photosynthesis: Mint and Cucumber 16. The Challenge of Carnivorous Plants: The Tipitiwitchet 17. Wordsworth’s Daffodils 18. On Being Pollinated: Keats’s Forget-Me-Not

New Lands, New Visions

The Victorian Plant Theatre

23. ‘Vegetable jewellery’: The Fern Craze 24. ‘The Queen of Lilies’: Victoria amazonica 25. A Sarawakan Stinkbomb: The Titan Arum 26. Harlequins and Mimics: The Orchid Troupe

The Real Language of Plants

27. The Butterfly Effect: The Moonflower 28. The Canopy Cooperative: Air Plants and Bromeliads 29. Plant Intelligence: Mimosa

Epilogue: The Tree of After Life Additional References and Sources List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Index