A Gardener’s Guide to Botany: The biology behind the plants you love, how they grow, and what they need by Scott Zona
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release Date: December 6, 2022

This beginner’s guide to botany is well conceived and executed. The photographs are beautiful and well-chosen to help the reader understand the complexities discussed in the text. The text gets definitionally dense in places, but also presents fascinating ideas in plain English. I learned a lot from the book, particularly where it was less steeped in technical terminology and details and offered intriguing ideas and examples.

While the book’s eight chapters aren’t formally divvied up, I would place them into three groups. Chapters one and two are about what plants are and how they are organized to do what they do. Chapters three through five are about what plants need to survive (water, light, and nutrients, respectively) and why. The last three chapters explore the main activities plants engage in (i.e. defense, reproduction, and seed dispersal.)

I found this book to be informative and readable, and if you’re looking for a basic guide to botany that skillfully employs photographs, I’d have a look at this one.


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