Carlos Magdalena

I started this book with a bit of trepidation. The title gave me pause because I thought the book would be all about the self-aggrandizement of the author but it turned out not to be that way at all.

It is written in an open, easy-to-read style that kept my interest the whole time and made me want to go to the internet to look at the areas of the countries he visited and look at the flowers the author was describing.

I have always thought of Kew Botanical Gardens as simply a massive garden for the royalty of England...boy was I wrong. I quickly realized what an important role Kew has in preserving rare plant species and how involved they are all over the world in seeking to preserve environments, help local peoples learn to cultivate locally important trees and plants, and preserve rare species there at Kew Gardens.

It is also a call to action to stop the madness and environmental destruction happening all over the world right now. This is probably one of the most important insights this book gives the reader.

I would like to thank the author, Carlos Magdalena, and Doubleday, Penguin Random House LLC for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I hope everyone gets a chance to read it.… (plus d'informations)

This book is mostly what it says on the tin, anecdotes about Magdalena's travels seeking out the world's most endangered plants, and his subsequent conservation efforts to stave off their extinction.

It starts off a little rocky, as my first impression of Magdalena was more evangelical than messianic, and the mini-biography at the start sometimes ventured into very self-satisfied prose. The biographical information was helpful, though probably could have been edited a bit.

Once chapter 2 begins though, all of that is quickly forgotten. As someone who is deeply interested in conservation of both plants and animals (except roaches), I was enthralled as I read about efforts to save species plants on Mauritius and Rodrigues Islands, in Bolivia, and Australia (water lilies!). As the daughter of an orchid grower who very often had to MacGyver solutions for tricky breeding problems, I genuinely enjoyed the parts where he had to think on his feet, or think outside the box to overcome perceived roadblocks to cultivation.

There's no denying his enthusiasm and his passion for his work; neither is there any denying the need for it, in a world where 2000 unknown plants can be identified in a given year, only to have many of them go extinct before they can even be named. I learned a great deal reading this, and hesitated to put it down, always wanting to know where he was going next and what he'd find when he got there.… (plus d'informations)

I received this book for free through the GoodReads first-reads program in exchange for an honest review.

[b: The Plant Messiah|32887685|The Plant Messiah Adventures in Search of the World’s Rarest Species|Carlos Magdalena|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1481032693s/32887685.jpg|53502735] is part biography, part short stories, and all call to the world to be more plant-conscious. [a: Carlos Magdalena|16053832|Carlos Magdalena|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1520009595p2/16053832.jpg] makes an impassioned plea through the pages of the book for us all to do our part to increase the biodiversity of the world itself, cultivate the endangered plants and trees of our locales in our own gardens, and in general celebrate the natural biodiversity around us rather than homogenize our own areas with non-natives and non-native invasives simply for the sake of it all.

[a: Carlos Magdalena|16053832|Carlos Magdalena|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1520009595p2/16053832.jpg], affectionately called The Plant Messiah, is employed by the Botanical Garden at Kew. He spends his days collecting, propagating, and solving the mysteries of the various critically endangered plants of the world. While he has done much to help cultivate previously 'hopeless' plants and even discovered new species, his tone throughout the book remains humble and he remains far more passionate about teaching others than simply stroking his own ego.

This book does a good job of explaining the importance of saving every plant we can, of unlocking the secrets of the rare and unusual and better understanding the ordinary. Carlos explains how the way plants have changed can help us understand our own world and what is happening in it, and how the ordinary person is indeed the most valuable asset in the fight against further extinctions.… (plus d'informations)