Wily Violets and Underground Orchids: Revelations of a Botanist (Paperback)

Wily Violets and Underground Orchids: Revelations of a Botanist By Peter Bernhardt Cover Image
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Description


In this book, Peter Bernhardt takes us on a grand tour of the botanical realm, weaving engaging descriptions of the lovely shapes and intriguing habits of flowering plants with considerations of broader questions, such as why there are only six basic shapes of flowers and why the orchid family is so numerous and so bizarre. Everyone from amateur naturalists and gardeners to plant scientists will find Wily Violets and Underground Orchids a lively guide to botanical lore.

About the Author


Peter Bernhardt is professor of biology at Saint Louis University and a research associate with the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust in Sydney, Australia. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, Gods and Goddesses in the Garden: Greco-Roman Mythology and the Scientific Names of Plants.

Praise For…


“It’s hard to choose among the riches Bernhardt offers as he weaves his way from grassland to city street, outback to backyard. At every stop, something is pollinating something. . . . Bernhardt’s style is a treat. . . . Read on into the green world of a fine botanist’s telling revelations.”
— New York Times Book Review

"Some of the strangest behavior in nature occurs in plants. Writing in a popular style, Bernhardt mingles fact and history with his own observations of plants gained during travels in the United States, South America, and Australia. His absorbing account . . . covers amazing conduct of both obscure and familiar plants, including seasonality and its consequences in a tropical cyclically dry forest; Australian mistletoe, whose leaves mimic those of the trees with which they have a parasitic relationship; the ecology of our North American grasslands; pollination by mammals, beetles, and moths; Amazonian giant water lilies; the eccentric life of the common violet; and five chapters on the strangest plants of all, the orchids."
— Library Journal
Product Details
ISBN: 9780226043661
ISBN-10: 0226043665
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication Date: May 17th, 2003
Pages: 263
Language: English