Fantastic Flora: The World’s Biggest, Baddest, and Smelliest Plants - Couverture rigide

Staats, Ann McCallum

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1536232831 ISBN 13 : 9781536232837

Editeur : MIT Kids Press, 2025

Synopsis

From deadly nightshade to the flying duck orchid, discover how some of the biggest, baddest, smelliest, and strangest plants around the globe earn their reputation as masters of survival.

Ready to meet some far-out flora? Leaf through this book and you’ll unearth some of the amazing adaptations that help plants thrive: Seeds that explode. Leaves that look like stones. Berries so deadly that swallowing just a few will stop your heart. A plant that eats meat, and another that pretends to be meat—rotten meat, with a smell so rank you’ll want to plug your nose. Dig in to the science of plant survival in a botanical book blooming with lush illustrations and filled with engagingly narrated, fascinating facts about how plants flourish, even in the most extreme environments on earth. A glossary, source notes, index, and select bibliography round out the back matter for readers eager to know more.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Ann McCallum Staats is the author of numerous children’s books, including the Eat Your Homework series, which garnered two Junior Library Guild Selections and a Bank Street College of Education’s Best Children’s Book of the Year; The Secret Life of Math; and High Flyers: 15 Inspiring Women Aviators and Astronauts. She has a master’s degree in education and lives in Virginia with her family.

Zoë Ingram is an artist, designer, and author. With an honors degree in industrial design for textiles and a career in graphic design and the creative arts spanning over twenty years, she primarily works with mixed media and digital applications, often combining both traditional and digital techniques. You’ll find her work on fabric, stationery, greetings cards, magazines, books, and home décor products. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

Introduction
 
Rumble. It’s the sound of your stomach begging for food. You might wander into the kitchen to grab a snack. Brrr. It’s your body shivering when the temperature drops. Maybe you snuggle into a sweater. But what about plants? When the going gets tough, plants don’t have the same options as us humans. They need a savvy way to survive in all kinds of conditions. Limited nutrients. The coldest cold, the driest dry. Cracks in sidewalks. Murky water or a moderate fire. Pests that want to eat them to death.
   When plants face a problem, it’s not like they can run away or pack up and move somewhere else. That’s why plants thrive using brilliant—and bizarre—adaptations. They use these features to help them succeed no matter what the environment throws at them. Some have thorns to discourage hungry predators. Others scam their way close to helpful pollinators so they can reproduce. Some ask for insect assistance using chemical signals. Wherever you look, plants are masters at survival.
   With a focus on some of the biggest, the baddest, the smelliest, and the strangest plants around the globe, the facts you’ll encounter may seem a little . . . unnatural. They’re not. Plants can’t talk or walk and don’t have a brain protected inside a bony skull, but they’ve figured out how to flourish.
   In this book, you’ll meet plants that eat meat and one, dead horse arum, that pretends to be meat—with a smell of rotten flesh that’s so rank you’ll want to plug your nose. Crane your neck back to marvel at plants taller than a twenty-story building; crouch down to unearth plants smaller than your toenail. Find out how—and why—certain plants live for centuries or generate enough heat to melt snow. Uncover bold vegetation that disguises itself to look like something else. Have you ever seen plants that look like stones?
   As you leaf through this book, you’ll discover the wildest plant traits. Exploding seeds. Fireproof trunks. Deadly berries. Adaptations so strange you’ll need to know more. Get ready to dig into the sensational science of plant survival!

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: MIT Kids Press
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1536232831
• ISBN 13: 9781536232837
• Reliure: Relié
• Illustrateur: Ingram Zoë
• Nombre de pages: 144
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible