Focusing on the natural history of the British Isles, Mr. Eatherley takes up the search for the stories behind some of the “endless succession of animals, plants, fungi and other alien lifeforms” that have taken to calling the Isles home over the past centuries, and indeed, facing up to the reality that it’s now “often hard to work out what actually is native, and what is foreign.” (There’s a larger metaphor in there somewhere…)
This past summer, I once again took up Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle, as my “daily morning read” for most of July and a bit of August. This was perhaps the third or fourth time I’d read the book, but like so many works to which I return, I find I discover something newly […]
“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.” 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.
If you, like me, like moss, you’ll be pleased to learn that you can indulge your bryophilic inclinations to your heart’s content through the most recent episode – number 180 – of the In Defense of Plants podcast.