“Most of us think of Darwin at work on The Beagle, taking inspiration for his theory of evolution from his travels in the Galapagos.” So opens the Profile Books‘ introduction to Dr. Ken Thompson‘s recently published Darwin’s Wonderful Plants; a Tour of His Botanical Legacy. I know I certainly did. That is, of course, until I made a visit to Down House this past summer and saw for myself his remarkable greenhouse and gardens, where he spent the decades following the return from his famous voyage cultivating and experimenting upon plants – particularly carnivorous and climbing ones.
As explains the citation for the book by University of Chicago Press, publishers of the U.S. edition (just released this past October), “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.”
As one who has spent years trying to fill in the holes in my understanding of the vast scope of Charles Darwin’s work, I will most certainly be reading this new book about his botanical legacy with great interest indeed.
