Green Kingdom: The Family History of Plants

The epic story of the plant kingdom, showing its staggering variety and ingenuity over half a billion years. ‘An awesome book. Ben Dark is a master storyteller’ NIGEL SLATER ‘Utterly fascinating. I don't expect to read a better work of natural history this year’ BILL BRYSON From the arrival of the first plants on land 484 million years ago to the globe-spanning diversity of flora we know today, Green Kingdom traces the evolution of plant life across eons and continents, reanimating the lost worlds that shaped its course and dramatically expanding our vision of what it means to be a plant. Through the stories of sixteen plant families, from the humble bog moss to the exquisite adaptations of the orchid, we witness how plant life colonised land, pioneered leaves, recruited fungi, formed seeds, manipulated animals and ultimately came to dominate our planet. Some take us to unrecognisable Earths, buried under twelve thousand years of ice or hidden in the blackout of an asteroid winter, others to a defining event in the planet’s history, from volcanic chain eruptions and sudden glaciations to the gradual parting of continents. Inhabiting the lives and minds of the adventurers, poets, philosophers and scientists who pieced this epic story together, Green Kingdom is both a hidden history of the Earth and a dynastic drama, as rich and unexpected as any story ever told. ‘A wonderful book by a writer of spectacular gifts’ NICOLA SHULMAN, author of Graven with Diamonds ‘A profound yet joyfully entertaining read’ JONATHAN DRORI, author of Around the World in 80 Plants ‘Wondrous’ SUE STUART SMITH, author of The Well Gardened Mind ‘Dark is a fantastic writer and Green Kingdom is an extraordinary example of his brimming talent’ MATT COLLINS, author of The Tree Atlas ‘Unputdownable’ MARY KEEN, author of Diary of a Keen Gardener