The Rose's Kiss: A Natural History Of Flowers

Capa
Island Press, 1999 - 267 páginas
Flowers bring joy and beauty to our lives, from the smallest patch of daisies outside our window to the elaborate floral decorations on display at weddings, banquets, and funerals. As well as offering aesthetic benefits, they teach us much about how the world works -- each blossom is a living factory that manufactures organs and compounds ranging from the flavonoids that make a rose red to the pollen that gives us hayfever.In The Rose's Kiss, botanist Peter Bernhardt rekindles our sense of wonder at the plant life all around us. He presents a fascinating and wide ranging look at the natural history of flowers -- their forms and functions as well as their hidden interactions with the surrounding environment and the other living organisms they depend upon for survival. Using both familiar and exotic examples, he examines: flower architecture, including the wonderfully descriptive names of floral parts and their respective roles in a plant's life-cycle the secret exchange between a bud and its environment that determines blooming time and the lifespan of individual blossoms colors, scents, and other mechanisms that plants use to attract pollinators and keep them returning season after season the incredible diversity of organisms that pollinate plants -- cockroaches, flies, moths, parrots, hummingbirds, bats, and others extinct plants and their fossil blossoms, showing the evolution of flowering plants over the past 125 million years and much moreDelightfully interwoven with intriguing facts and stories from history, folklore, and mythology, The Rose's Kiss is a wonderful example of literary science writing at its best. It should hold wide appeal for nature lovers, garden enthusiasts, and anyone interested in learning more about the inner workings of the natural world.

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Índice

INTRODUCTION
3
CHAPTER 2
25
CHAPTER 3
41
CHAPTER 4
54
CHAPTER 5
67
CHAPTER 7
95
CHAPTER 9
122
CHAPTER 12
132
The Faithful and Unfaithful Bee
160
CHAPTER 13
174
CHAPTER 14
187
CHAPTER
198
CHAPTER 16
209
CHAPTER 17
221
Glossary of Flower Terms
235
About the Author
249

Psychoanalysis and Serenades
146

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Página 110 - For, in the flaxen lilies' shade, It like a bank of lilies laid. Upon the roses it would feed, Until its lips e'en seemed to bleed; And then to me 'twould boldly trip, And print those roses on my lip. But all its chief delight was still On roses thus itself to fill, And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold: Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within.
Página 95 - The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye, As the perfumed tincture of the roses ; Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses ; But, for their virtue* only is their show, They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade ; Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so ; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made : And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth.
Página 85 - There is a garden in her face, Where roses and white lilies grow; A heavenly paradise is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow. There cherries grow which none may buy Till 'Cherry-ripe
Página 15 - Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, Come hither, the dances are done, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Queen lily and rose in one; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flowers, and be their sun.
Página 134 - The moth's kiss, first! Kiss me as if you made believe You were not sure, this eve. How my face, your flower, had pursed Its petals up; so, here and there You brush it, till I grow aware Who wants me, and wide ope I burst.
Página 110 - Lilies' shade, It like a bank of Lilies laid. Upon the Roses it would feed, Until its Lips ev'n seem'd to bleed: And then to me 'twould boldly trip, And print those Roses on my Lip. But all its chief delight was still On Roses thus its self to fill : And its pure virgin Limbs to fold In whitest sheets of Lilies cold.
Página 95 - O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses; But, for their virtue only is their show...

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