Description

Every schoolchild learns concerning the mutually-beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to create honey and, along the way, develops the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human control—with, beauty, intoxication, and desires—sweetness the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates the way the plants have evolved to fulfill humankind’s simplest yearnings.