Bacteria for boys

“The Pictorial Encylopedia of Plants and Flowers” by F A Novak is an originally Czech work. It has been translated to several foreign languages, including Swedish. As a kid, I and my best friend sneaked into the local library in secret to leaf through it. We had gotten into our tiny little heads that plants and flowers were somehow “girlie” and hence uncool for boys. Ha ha ha.

Actually, this huge volume contains a lot of cool stuff for boys, too: bacteria, cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, lichens and ferns. Plants? Flowers? But sure, most of the cyclopaedia does contain photos of flowery plants, unfortunately mostly in black-and-white. The editor did use the few colour plates relatively wisely. They feature orchids, the golden crocus, the poinsettia and…the fly agaric mushroom. More original is the inclusion of a colour photo of a…pineapple.

Not sure how to rate this somewhat strange product, which contains more illustrations than text (and hence information). Could work as a leaf-through volume on your book shelf (or the waiting room of a dentist?), but otherwise I say its use is limited and popularity somehow mysterious…