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| The Private Life of Plants | 
| Author: David Attenborough
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $31.95
Buy Used: $4.50
You Save: $27.45 (86%)
New (1) Collectible (1) from $31.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 375254
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 7.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0691006393
Dewey Decimal Number: 581.5
EAN: 9780691006390
ASIN: 0691006393
Publication Date: August 21, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Based on the immensely popular six-part BBC program that will air in the United States during the fall of 1995, this book offers what writer/filmmaker David Attenborough is best known for delivering: an intimate view of the natural world wherein a multitude of miniature dramas unfold. In the program and book, both titled The Private Life of Plants, Attenborough treks through rainforests, mountain ranges, deserts, beaches, and home gardens to show us things we might never have suspected about the vegetation that surrounds us. With their extraordinary sensibility, plants compete endlessly for survival and interact with animals and insects: they can see, count, communicate, adjust position, strike, and capture. Attenborough makes the plant world a vivid place for readers, who in this book can enjoy the tour at their own pace, taking in the lively descriptions and nearly 300 full-color photos showing plants in close detail. The author reveals to us the aspects of plants' lives that seem hidden from view, such as fighting, avoiding or exploiting predators or neighbors, and struggling to find food, increase their territories, reproduce themselves, and establish their place in the sun. Among the most amazing examples, the acacia can communicate with other acacias and repel enemies that might eat their leaves, the orchid can impersonate female wasps to attract males and ensure the spreading of its pollen, the Venus's flytrap can take other organisms captive and consume them. Covering this remarkable range of information with enthusiasm and clarity, Attenborough helps us to look anew at the vegetation on which all life depends and which has an intriguing life of its own. He has created a book sure to please the plant lover and any other reader interested in exploring the natural world.
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| Customer Reviews:
inexplicably magical April 30, 2005
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Although I could never be bored watching "The Private Life of Plants" over and over, I bought the book on a sale table, not expecting much. I was, however, absorbed in it that evening, reading and poring over pictures of plants I'd never seen. The next day I was walking along a watercourse that had recently been in flood. Hanging from a bit of log was the 'skeleton' of a fungi that I would have never recognised, had I not stared at the picture in wonder the night before, as something simply extraordinary.
Big picture botany December 29, 2002
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
This book presents an overview of many areas of botany. The book is written in an informal style for the general reader rather than specialists or university students. Nevertheless, it contains a wealth of facts and information about hundreds, if not thousands of plant species. What I especially liked about the book is that it doesn't get bogged down in details when discussing topics such as seed dispersal or pollination. Instead, Attenborough has done an admirable job of explaining the issues in very clear language. He also provides numerous examples and anecdotes, along with several full color photos on every page. The photos certainly make this book a fine volume for the coffee table. As an aside, Attenborough is a British author, so some of his examples are of British or European plants that Americans may not be familiar with. At times, Attenborough's almost anti-academic style can also go a little overboard, such as when he rejects the standard practice of italicizing Latin species names. Nevertheless, the book is quite well written, and will be of interest to anyone who likes plants or photography. It could also serve as a science resource for home schoolers.
Brill March 30, 2001
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
A fantastic book which brings plants alive
Interesting and fascinating book of an fore me unknow world August 11, 1998
5 out of 15 found this review helpful
David Attenborough describes the interesting life of plants in a very interesting way, and that makes the book to my number one. He is telling us about the evolution and how it developed the plants, how it have given the spicies such spectacular behaviors, behaviors most of us didn't know about.
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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