Review by Booklist Review
Seeking an antidote to dire news, environmental reporter Schlanger devoted herself to tracking the surge in "new epiphanies in plant science." Plants, Schlanger reminds us, dominate life on earth and make our lives possible, yet we often dismiss their significance, viewing them as backdrop, passive and predictable. Schlanger disabuses us of this enormous misperception as she chronicles, with growing wonder, her sojourns with innovative botanists in labs and in the field in Hawaii, Chile, Connecticut, Germany, and beyond. Grounded in the history of botany, she lucidly and vividly explains startling findings about plant communication, memory, decision-making, motion, sense (touch, hearing, vision), defenses, kin recognition, altruism, and many other forms of green intelligence. Each portrait of a plant, from sagebrush to arabidopsis to the shape-shifting boquila vine, and each interaction between plants and pollinators, reveals more evidence supporting the arguments that plants are complex and active "social beings" who care for their families and thrive in collaborative communities. Just as books by Peter Wohlleben and Suzanne Simard have deepened our understanding of trees, the discoveries Schlanger shares in this involving, vibrant, and affecting dispatch from the vanguard of plant research profoundly expands our appreciation for plants, their essential role in the great web of life, and how recognition of plant intelligence can help us reverse environmental decimation.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Schlanger, a staff writer at the Atlantic, debuts with an astounding exploration of the remarkable abilities of plants and fungi. Highlighting recent research suggesting many plants are "composites of interpenetrating forms of life," Schlanger details Peruvian ecologist Ernesto Gianoli's theory that the Chilean boquila vine, which changes the appearance of its leaves to mimic nearby plants, receives shape-shifting direction from microorganisms "hijacking and redirecting" the vine's genes. Other plants appear capable of communication, Schlanger contends, explaining that the Sitka willow can "alter the contents of its leaves to be less nutritious" when threatened by hungry caterpillars and transmit airborne chemical signals prompting other trees to take similar defensive action before they're attacked. Investigating whether plants can be said to have personalities, Schlanger describes ecologist Richard Karban's ongoing research into whether differences in how strongly individual sagebrush plants respond to internal and external distress signals are consistent over time ("Natural-born scaredy-cats" might respond "wildly at the slightest disturbance"). There are mind-bending revelations on every page, and Schlanger combines robust intellectual curiosity with delicate lyricism ("Pearlescent wetness clings to everything like spider silk," she writes of the Hawaiian cliffs where a botanist rappels to pollinate an endangered hibiscus). Science writing doesn't get better than this. (May)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Ambitious attempts to decode the manifest mysteries of plants. Schlanger, a staff reporter at the Atlantic, has followed multiple veins of study on plant life to reveal remarkable discoveries and some potentially revolutionary conjectures. Her passion for the realm of plants--and what their lives tell us about our own--is consistent throughout this wondrous text. This is that rare book that fascinates, challenges widely held assumptions, and enlightens in like measure. The author doubtless considers the narrative an overview of current plant science (and its history) for general readers, notwithstanding the years invested in her own preparatory research, but it is hard to imagine a more thorough introduction or a writer more dedicated to her subject and provocative in the questions she asks. Schlanger chronicles her edifying interactions with dozens of scientists, describing numerous experiments. She also weighs the skepticism of botanists and biologists who think the study of intelligence in plants is folly. Many scientists, she notes, still recoil from the damage done to legitimate research by the largely spurious but immensely popular 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants, "a mix of real science, flimsy experiments, and unscientific projection." However, this reticence pales when held against new studies of the ways in which plants communicate, defend themselves, and remember, as well as the considerations of how biological systems can replicate across the spectrum of species. What is indisputable is that plants made animal life possible in the most fundamental way, transitioning the world's atmosphere from a toxic shroud of carbon dioxide to an oasis of oxygen. In this lovely book, the plant universe finds a human champion appreciative of its earthly role, concerned for its welfare, and amazed at its capacities. A delightful work of popular science. You may never look at your houseplants or garden in quite the same way again. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
