»Simple Plants« – Spectrum of Science . on book review

Kramer adds countless (scientific) details to the roughly sketched overview; Facts you’ve always wanted to know. For example, why don’t trees grow endlessly in the sky. He explains that, on the one hand, it naturally provides stability, but on the other it also has to do with the water supply to the treetops. The water thread breaks under its own weight at a height of about 130 m, as the cohesive forces are no longer able to hold the water particles together under this weight. In addition, readers learn, for example, about the wood building material lignin, about the “influential material economy” in the manufacture of effective conduit fabrics, but also about what this has to do with the formation of annual rings and How dendrochronology makes use of it for little ones to reconstruct climate history.

The result is a collection of botany that differs from other botany books in that it approaches the subject not as a textbook of conveying facts, but as an entertaining narrative to a reader. The eloquent writer does not shy away from explaining complex facts.

C. special metabolism of₄– and CAM plants, for example, as well as dealing with beach plants with high salt concentrations. The whimsical titles of the sub-chapters (“On the subject of the stability of the grain stalk”), intertwined anecdotes (“Vincent the Paint mutants”) and amusing sentences (“Contraceptive botany”, “Pollen on a stick”) ” ) ensure the overall gripping character of the book. In addition, attention is paid to many cross-connections and associations, for example in relation to film or fairy tale characters such as Tarzan and Spider-Man and climbing plants. Interpretation of Eugene Druverman’s fairy tales, including a reference to Sleeping Beauty, in relation to or on the subject of thorns or spikes.

In this way, the reader passes almost unnoticed to a basic degree in botany, the content of which for lessons and lectures outweighs the curriculum and study programs of recent decades. The author creates awareness about how many amazing things in the environment around us, it is amazing. A highly recommended book – but it deserves a good layout.