David George Haskell

Exhortation, moral assessment, and education all in one sign. Love that someone hauled in a tomato cage and *laminated* sign to protect this vine growing alongside a trail in urban woodland. (Lullwater, on the creek/VA Hospital side, Atlanta)

This symbiosis started about 9,000 years ago in Mexico and also in the Andes in South America.

From How Flowers Made our World: "The smell is a blend of rose and citrus, with a darker undertone of cloves. Like other young flowers that I’ve sniffed, this one also has a tang of something green and bitter, a whiff of cucumber skin. But none of these comparisons come to mind in the moment. Instead, I’m suddenly, and only briefly, in a warm, ambrosial space. Ek stasis, indeed. I’m leery of admitting it – eyeroll, keep a lid on the prose flower-boy – but I’m transported. A few moments later, I’ve come down. I’m a pathetic huffer lurking in my neighbors’ hedging."

Perhaps to stop squabbling among multiple fathers, the mother plant make sure that she contributes twice the genes compared to the dads to the food hampers, the "endosperm", that she gives to each seed

Thank you, @lindsey_a_liles , for this wonderful conversation about the creative powers of our floral cousins in @gardenandgun Also: Lindsey is this year's recipient of the Reed Environmental Writing Award from @southernenvironment . Check out her stunning reporting on red wolves and other biodiversity.

Happy Mother's Day! Two innovations in botanical motherhood revolutionized our world. Today is a good day to celebrate all forms of motherhood 💚

Tickets at @69atlantic Brilliance this week from @denis.behr @herbertrubberband We were literally screaming with disbelief and joy, a strange, magical combo

Are you ready for an exquisite exploration of the role flowers played in creating the world we know today? Join David George Haskell (@davidgeorgehaskell ) for a conversation about his new book How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature’s Revolutionaries (Viking). In his latest work, David observes, smells, and studies flowers such as magnolias, orchids, and roses, as well as fascinating but less celebrated flowers such as seagrasses and tea. Through radical genetic flexibility, flowers turned past environmental upheavals into opportunities for renewal. Looking to the future, flowers offer us lessons on resilience and creativity in the face of rapid environmental change. We need floral creativity, beauty, and joy more than ever. This book combines lyrical writing, sensual exploration, and the latest in scientific research to explore some of the most consequential life forms ever to have evolved, showing how our planet came to be and how it thrives today. Co-presented with @pointreyesbooks How Flowers Made Our World * May 22 | 11am - 12:30pm Pacific Join us in person or on Zoom $20 suggested, no one turned away Find out more and register at the linktree in bio. Look under "Events." ___ #CommonwealBolinas #CommonwealNewSchool #HealingOurselvesAndTheEarth #HowFlowersMadeOurWorld

Inside that spiky seed pod, elaiosomes attached to seeds. Ant snacks. The seed gets deposited in a nice underground ant compost heap. A great wildflower nursery. Working with ants in this way is called myrmecochory. A meadow of vocab. Glad to see one of my fav flowers leaping into the next gen

Loud enough to wake John Stuart Mill from the dead. On Liberty...

Bay Area friends: I'll be in conversation with Alexis Madrigal at University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley on May 20th. Register at UC Botanical Garden events page.

What a delight it was to interview @davidgeorgehaskell about his new book How Flowers Made Our World. Learn about the role smell played for flowers as our world was shaped. I highly recommend adding his book to your collection. You’ll come back to it again and again! Read the interview through the link in bio or go to . #howflowersmadeourworld #anaromaticlife #davidgeorgehaskell #bookaboutflowers