Green Universe - A Microscopic Voyage into the Plant Cell
Professor Stephen Blackmore, Regius Keeper RBGE
Published in association with Papadakis Publisher
978-1-906506-21-6
Large format, landscape, hardback book with jacket. Illustrated throughout.
£35 + packing and postage
In Green Universe, eminent botanist and RBGE Regius Keeper Stephen Blackmore takes us on a journey through time and space – from the origin of the first cells more than three billion years ago, through their complex intertwined history, to the myriad forms they now take and the perfectly-adapted organs and organisms they make up.
The author deftly interweaves the story of life on Earth with our quest to understand the cell through the invention and development of the microscope. He shows how plant cells, besides being beautiful, are also through photosynthesis the powerhouses of life on Earth. Although we cannot live without them we tend to take plants for granted, as though they were all more or less the same, when nothing could be further from the truth. The more closely we look at the world around us, the more we can understand our own place in the complex web of life.
Lavishly-illustrated in full colour, Green Universe is an engaging read and a mine of information, celebrating the diversity of cells and the unity of all living things into which they are built.
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The Living Collection
by Dr David Rae, Director of Horticulture at RBGE
A comprehensive account of the history, accession, care and maintainance of RBGE's living plant collection across its four Gardens. In The Living Collection David Rae offers a new way of seeing the extraordinary diversity of plants cultivated outside or under glass, but he is careful not to take the metaphor too far. The Director of Horticulture at RBGE also guides the reader behind the scenes to reveal the skilled work involved in caring for a world-famous collection and then explains exactly why it matters.
Colour large format paperback with photographs throughout.
978-1-906129-77-4
£25 + p&p
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Gardening the Earth - Gateways to a Sustainable Future
Professor Stephen Blackmore, Regius Keeper, RBGE.
978-1-906129-19-4 (paperback)
978-1-906129-20-0 (hardback)
Large format, approx 128pp, full colour illustrated with photos and illustrations throughout.
Now Published. Price £20 paperback or £25 hardback.
Postage: Pbk: UK £4/Europe £7.50/Rest of World: £10 Hbk: UK £5/Europe £8.50/Rest of World: £11.50
Email completed order form to: pps@rbge.org.uk or fax to 0131 248 2827
From memories of a childhood blessed with an acute awareness of the wonders of nature to a present day crusade to save our world, Gardening the Earth - Gateways to a Sustainable Future, is a work in which eminent botanist Professor Stephen Blackmore, Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), tackles the complex issue of climate change head-on.
In this frank, but highly readable book, Prof. Blackmore strips away the mystique and complexity that often shrouds the subject of climate change. No longer is it a topic exclusively for scientists and politicians to debate. Prof. Blackmore has thrown climate change into the public arena and his book puts the responsibility for conserving our planet well and truly in our hands.
Prof. Blackmore freely admits he doesn't have all the answers and that there are no quick or easy solutions, but having travelled widely and having the privilege of being Regius Keeper at RBGE, he writes that he can see some parts of the solution to the challenges we face.
Prof. Blackmore asks us which future we will choose - "business as usual'' whereby we selfishly put our planet under immense strain or one where we redress the balance in favour of the natural economy? He emphasises the need to keep our rich biological inheritance and to recognise the importance of plants in keeping the global ecosystems balanced. He reminds us that we are all shareholders in planet Earth and that we need to invest in nature by tending the global garden. Hence, he invites us to keep "gardening the Earth.''
Hear an excerpt of Stephen Blackmore lecturing about Gardening the Earth.