Seeds
Subtitle: a natural history
By: Carolyn Fry
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 192
ISBN-13: 9780226224350; 9780226224497
Subjects: Natural history; Botany; Seeds; Popular works
Description: With Seeds, Carolyn Fry offers a celebration of these vital but unassuming packages of life. She begins with a sweeping tour through human history, designed to help us understand why we should appreciate and respect these floral parcels. Wheat, corn, and rice, she reminds us, supply the foundations of meals eaten by people around the world. Countless medicines, oils, clothing materials, and building supplies are available only because of the versatility and variety of seed-bearing plants. Fry then provides a comprehensive history of the evolution of seeds, explaining the myriad ways that they have adapted, survived, and thrived across the globe. Delving deeper into the science of seeds, she reveals the fascinating processes of dormancy, reproduction, germination, and dispersal, and showcases the estimable work conservationists are doing today to gather and bank seeds in order to prevent species from going extinct.
Notes: Includes bibliography and index.
Table of contents: title: The importance of seeds to humanity; title: How plants evolved on planet earth; title: How seed plants reproduce; title: Dispersal takes seeds to new pastures; title: Germination brings plants back to life; title: Using seeds to ensure humanity's survival.