{"title":"Richard Mabey","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-cabaret-of-plants-botany-and-the-imagination","title":"The Cabaret of Plants: Botany and the Imagination","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn The Cabaret of Plants, Mabey explores the plant species which have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty and belief.Picked from every walk of life, they encompass crops, weeds, medicines, religious gathering-places and a water lily named after a queen. Beginning with pagan cults and creation myths, the cultural significance of plants has burst upwards, sprouting into forms as diverse as the panacea (the cure-all plant ginseng, a single root of which can cost up to $10,000), Newton's apple, the African 'vegetable elephant' or boabab - and the mystical, night-flowering Amazonian cactus, the moonflower.Ranging widely across science, art and cultural history, poetry and personal experience, Mabey puts plants centre stage, and reveals a true botanical cabaret, a world of tricksters, shape-shifters and inspired problem-solvers, as well as an enthralled audience of romantics, eccentric amateur scientists and transgressive artists. The Cabaret of Plants celebrates the idea that plants are not simply 'the furniture of the planet', but vital, inventive, individual beings worthy of respect - and that to understand this may be the best way of preserving life together on Earth.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Profile","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50453539062091,"sku":"404206","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/06d165c8-e390-40df-a4e3-98a9acbed164_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727173431"},{"product_id":"weeds-the-story-of-outlaw-plants","title":"Weeds: The Story of Outlaw Plants","description":"\u003cp\u003eEver since the first human settlements 10,000 years ago, weeds have dogged our footsteps. They are there as the punishment of 'thorns and thistles' in Genesis and , two millennia later, as a symbol of Flanders Field. They are civilisations' familiars, invading farmland and building-sites, war-zones and flower-beds across the globe. Yet living so intimately with us, they have been a blessing too. Weeds were the first crops, the first medicines. Burdock was the inspiration for Velcro. Cow parsley has become the fashionable adornment of Spring weddings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWeaving together the insights of botanists, gardeners, artists and poets with his own life-long fascination, Richard Mabey examines how we have tried to define them, explain their persistence, and draw moral lessons from them.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Faber","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50461673029963,"sku":"1146619","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"the-accidental-garden-gardens-wilderness-and-the-space-in-between","title":"The Accidental Garden: Gardens, Wilderness and the Space In Between","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe regard gardens as our personal dominions, where we can create whatever worlds we desire. But they are also occupied by myriads of other organisms, all with their own lives to lead. The conflict between these two power bases, Richard Mabey suggests, is a microcosm of what is happening in the larger world.Rooted in the daily dramas of his own Norfolk garden, Mabey offers a different scenario, where nature becomes an equal partner, a 'gardener' itself. Against a background of disordered seasons he watches his 'accidental' garden reorganising itself. Ants sow cowslip seeds in the parched grass. Moorhens take to nesting in trees. A spectacular self-seeded rose springs up in the gravel. The garden becomes a place of cultural and ecological fusion, and perhaps a metaphor for the troubled planet.This is vintage Mabey - maverick, intensely observed, and written with an unquenchable sense of wonder.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Faber","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":51026409881931,"sku":"2237318","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/510H0CKmt5L._SY445_SX342__b0463b4f_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1735569918"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/richard-mabey.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}