cover image 50 Plants That Changed the World

50 Plants That Changed the World

Stephen A. Harris. Bodleian Library, $40 (320p) ISBN 978-1-85124-652-6

This delightful debut chronicle from Harris traces how beets, wheat, yew, and other plants have shaped human society throughout history. He explains that after the domestication of barley in the Fertile Crescent 8,000 years ago, the grain was used to make bread and became the focus of such early religious festivals as Robigalia, during which Roman farmers beseeched the gods to protect their fields. Exploring the winding lineage of beets, Harris notes that ancient Egyptian healers prescribed them for leprosy and dandruff, and that two French industrialists’ 1812 invention of a commercial process for extracting sugar from beet root transformed it through selective breeding into a cash crop that reduced France’s dependence on Caribbean sugar cane. Elsewhere, Harris discusses how yew wood was prized by medieval bow makers for its strength and malleability, and how lycopods, a group of clubmosses that have been around for 350 million years, enabled modern civilization by carbonizing into coal over millennia. The trivia fascinates (third-century Carthaginian warrior Maharbal took advantage of mandrake’s sleep-inducing properties by leaving mandrake-infused wine in his camp before retreating; he returned to find his drugged enemies asleep and had them slaughtered), and the generous illustrations from 18th- and 19th-century naturalists gives this the feel of a vintage taxonomical guide. Plant lovers will want to add this to their collection. Illus. (July)