The Botanic Garden is the latest offering from award-winning writer and garden historian Ambra Edwards and – like all her books – it does not disappoint. Blending history, science, plants and people, it is both absorbing and instructive. Despite its large format and lavish production, this engrossing book is more than a beautiful, coffee-table tour of the world’s most amazing botanical gardens. Edwards delves into their diverse histories and various uses – as medicinal hotbeds, botanical training grounds, living cabinets of curiosities and agents of Empire.
If you were expecting a purely historical account, you may be surprised to learn about the vital role botanical gardens play today, not just individually but together as a global network of shared materials, knowledge and research. Forty per cent of the world’s plant species are threatened with extinction and the combined work of our botanic gardens is crucial to their survival. As Edwards explains, these gardens were never simply places of horticultural escape and plant theatre; they have always served a higher purpose and their role today is critical.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 2024-Ausgabe von Gardens Illustrated.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 2024-Ausgabe von Gardens Illustrated.
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