Wily Violets and Underground Orchids: Revelations of a Botanist

Front Cover
University of Chicago Press, May 17, 2003 - Gardening - 255 pages
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.
 

Contents

Trees of Two Seasons
1
A Childs Garden of Gumnuts
13
A Country of Mistletoes
27
Prairie Days
41
The Floral Theater
51
The Forms of Flowers
53
Pollinating Possums
67
Beetles Blossoms and the Blood of Adonis
81
In the Shadow of Forest and Glacier
125
Hanging by Their Heels
139
Those Unnatural Flowers
153
Ladys Wear
155
San Salvadors Urban Orchids
169
Orchidelirium
183
Charles Darwin and the Christmas Star
195
The Fiendish Orchid
205

An Ancient Moth for an Ancient Flower
89
Portraits in Chlorophyll
99
Royal Amazons
101
The Wily Violets
111
Orchids in the Dark
213
Index
241
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Wily Violets and Underground Orchids: Revelations of a Botanist
Peter Bernhardt
Snippet view - 1990
Wily Violets & Underground Orchids: Revelations of a Botanist
Peter Bernhardt
Snippet view - 1989

Common terms and phrases

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References to this book

About the author (2003)

Peter Bernhardt is a professor of biology at St. Louis University and a research associate at both the Missouri Botanical Garden of St. Louis and the Royal Botanic Gardens of Sydney, Australia. He is the author of Natural Affairs: A Botanist Looks at the Attachments between Plants and People and The Rose's Kiss: A Natural History of Flowers, the latter published by the University of Chicago Press.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Wily Violets and Underground Orchids
TitleWily Violets and Underground Orchids: Revelations of a Botanist
AuthorPeter Bernhardt
Editionillustrated, reprint
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press, 2003
ISBN0226043665, 9780226043661
Length255 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Gardening / Flowers / General
Gardening / Flowers / Orchids
Nature / Plants / Flowers
Science / General
Science / Life Sciences / Botany
  
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