Humans are entirely dependent on plants: we eat them, build with them, burn them for power, breathe the air they maintain, cure our ills with them. Yet, we are destroying this fundamental resource at a terrifying rate. This extensively revised and updated edition of Anthony Huxley’s magnificent global overview of our plant kingdom portrays the beauty, diversity, and history of wild and cultivated plants, highlighting their profound importance in our lives. With its beautiful color photographs, drawings, charts, diagrams, and superb text, Green Inheritance describes the role of plants in the global environment and across cultures; shows how plants are used for food, fuel, and medicine; considers their role for us as objects of beauty in gardens; and much more. Encyclopedic in scope and full of intriguing stories about many individual plants, this remarkable book emphasizes just how essential our green inheritance is to the future of humanity.

Huxley explores many topics that reflect a deepening concern about the threats to our plant heritage such as the slender genetic base of the world’s staple crops and the dwindling last locations of wild resources with unexplored potential. This new edition expands its coverage of current issues such as invasive plants, hotspots of plant diversity, herbal medicines, genetically modified crops, and sustainable timber harvesting. Writing with wisdom and vision, Huxley has created an invaluable resource for learning about the world’s plant life that underscores the importance and urgency of plant conservation.

Foreword by David Attenborough

Chapter One The Green Inheritance
Chapter Two Guardians of the Environment
Chapter Three Green Travellers
Chapter Four Our Daily Bread
Chapter Five The Spice of Life
Chapter Six Green Wealth
Chapter Seven Green Medicine
Chapter Eight Objects of Beauty
Chapter Nine Plants and Society
Chapter Ten Improving the Resources
Chapter Eleven Saving the Plants that Save Us

A Future for Plants
Further Reading/Acknowledgements
Index

The late Anthony Huxley was author of Plant and Planet (1974) and thirty others books and field guides on flowers and horticulture. He was an editor at Amateur Gardening.

“Huxley’s words evoke the wonder and beauty of the plant world in a literary style that is easy to understand and appreciate.”—National Gardener

“This beautiful book deftly makes the case for botanical conservation.”—Science News

“A revised edition of a classic environmental title, Green Inheritance is a lushly illustrated treatment of an important theme. . . . Although the primary information is contemporary, the author (now deceased) of the original material also has beneficial perspectives on history, culture, and commerce, providing a lucent argument for ecological preservation.”—M. Angle, Bloomsbury Review

“This new, invaluable, and more urgent incarnation addresses the fact that critical plant species are dying out at an alarming rate, a situation that continues to worsen with the passing of time. . . . The elegance and descriptive power of the text combines with compelling visuals to show the interconnectedness of deserts, oceans, and polar ice caps. Readers will come away with an enhanced view of the natural world.”—Booklist