Manly stuff

“The Private Life of Plants” isn't as spectacular as David Attenborough's later foray into the kingdom of Plantae and Fungi, “Kingdom of Plants 3D”, but that's mostly a function of the camera technology. Otherwise, all the bizarre stuff is here: 500 year old strangler figs, the Venus fly trap, the pitcher plant, the giant water lily, or the perfectly ordinary bramble – ordinary, that is, until you film it with time-lapse photography, revealing that the bramble bush is about as aggressive as an expansive human empire…

Somehow, I got even more paranoid about the houseplants surrounding me as we speak, after watching clips from this six-part series! As a kid, I assumed that plants were boring and somehow “girlie”, but it seems they are just as cool as sharks or mountain lions, ha ha.

Wind in the willows

This is the book version of David Attenborough's TV series “The Private Life of Plants”. Books like these were indispensable in the good ol' days before the World Wide Web. All the highlights of the show are here: bristlecone pines (one of these trees is 5000 years old?!), strangler figs (only 500 years old – tssk, tssk), an underground orchid in West Australia, the giant water lily of the Amazon, carrion flowers (guess what they smell like), the Venus fly trap, plants fooling insects into “mating” with them, etc etc. Some fungi have been thrown in for good measure, too, although fungi aren't really plants (well, not anymore). Good if you like plants, including the slightly absurd varieties. Probably a total waste of time otherwise…

The honeytrap

The somewhat forbidding title of this work is "Aphrodite's Mouse Trap. A biography of Venus's Flytrap with facsimiles of an original pamphlet and the manuscripts of John Ellis, FRS". It's published by Boëthius Press, Aberyswyth, Wales in association with the Bentham-Moxon Trust and the Linnean Society.

The bulk of this volume contains a facsimile of John Ellis' 1770 pamphlet with the even longer title "Directions for bringing over seeds and plants...to which is added, The Figure and Botanical description of a new Sensitive Plant, called Dionaea muscipula: or Venus's fly-trap". Ellis was a fellow of the Royal Society of London, a friend of Carolus Linnaeus, the Royal Agent for West Florida and Colonial Agent for Dominica. Yet, his place and date of birth remain unknown. Not even a portrait has survived!

The book starts with introductory chapters on Venus's Flytrap, including a long digression on the Latin name, and on the "discovery" of this bizarre, carnivorous plant in North America. But, as I already pointed out, most of it is a reprint of Ellis' previously mentioned pamphlet.

This book is probably suited for botany or natural history buffs, of the really hard core variety. A typical anachronistic library book! But sure, if you are a real enthusiast, you might get "honeytrapped" by it.

Four stars?