Anatomy of a Rose: Exploring the secret life of flowers by Sharman Apt
Russell, Perseus, $24, ISBN 0738202088
BOOKSELLERS everywhere must be wondering where to shelve this slim volume.
Its title has more than a whiff of the botanical treatise, and the text is
dotted with familiar schoolbook diagrams of cut-away flowers and the like. Yet
writers of textbooks rarely remark: “I am sitting naked in a hot spring…My
friend next to me is also naked.”
So how to pigeon-hole Anatomy of a Rose? It’s part of a new genre pioneered
in the US—a hybrid of popular science and nature writing laced with lots
of travel-writers’ “I was there feeling thus”. If this eclectic approach
appeals, you are in for a treat. You’ll learn about new research in pollination
biology and plant ecology without the effort of concentrating for long.
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Although the chapters could stand alone as magazine essays, one theme runs
through the book: our relationship to nature. Sharman Apt Russell is uneasy with
the notion that contemporary Westerners are forever alienated from nature
because we no longer find it sacred. She finds flowers beautiful, and wants to
know why they are the way they are.
I suspect that she nurtures a secret hope that scientific understanding can
help us to rebuild our links to the natural world. Let’s hope she’s right.
