Seeing (Timber Press)

A centuries-old saying goes, "Great oaks from little acorns grow." But as this dazzling book reveals, there is much more to a seed than the plant it will someday become: seeds, seedheads, pods, and fruits have their own astounding beauty that rivals, and sometimes even surpasses, the beauty of flowers. Bitter melon seeds resemble a handful of rubies. Poppy pods could be art nouveau salt shakers. And butterfly vine seeds look exactly like those delicate insects captured in mid-flight.  Seeds also come with fascinating stories. Jewels of Opar got its name from a fabled city in Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan stories. Lotus seeds sent into orbit by Chinese scientists came back to earth mysteriously altered. And fava beans-beloved of foodies-have a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality: they can cause the debilitating condition known as favism in some individuals and at the same time combat the microorganism that causes malaria. In these stunning pages you'll gain an understanding of how seeds are formed and dispersed, why they look the way they do, and how they fit into the environment. Seeing Seeds will take you to strange and wonderful places. When you return, it's safe to say that you'll never look at a seed the same way again.   Teri Dunn Chace's remarkable horticultural insights and Robert Llewellyn's breathtaking photographs make this addition to the Timber Press Seeing Series a fascinating exploration of seeds, seedheads, pods, and fruits to bring you into a closer, more intimate relationship with these miracles of nature. Teri Dunn Chace is a writer and editor with more than thirty-five book in publication. She has also written and edited extensively for Horticulture, North American Gardener, Backyard Living, and Birds and Blooms. Raised in California and educated at Bard College in New York, Chace has gardened in a variety of climate zones and soil types.  Robert Llewellyn's photographs have been featured in major art exhibits, and more than thirty books currently in print. His book, Empires of the Forest: Jamestown and the Beginning of America, won five national awards in nonfiction and photography, and Washington: The Capital was an official diplomatic gift of the White House and State Department. Introduction: The Edge of a Mystery If you have ever been on a journey and returned a changed person, I invite you to sit down with this book. I've been on a seeds odyssey. Not with seeds in my pockets or sewn into my hemline like an immigrant, a preservationist, or a long-ago plant explorer, but with Bob Llewellyn's exquisite and insightful photographs as my pathway. I had thought I was well equipped with horticultural and botanical knowledge, seeing as I am a lifelong gardener, an amateur botanist, and the author of various books about plants and nature. While I am not a scientist, I have delved into their thick books and scholarly papers. Although I am not a farmer, I have heeded reflections of everyone from Scott Chaskey to Vandana Shiva to Michael Abelman. I have also talked with local and distant farmers and gardening friends about this project. Like a child in a fairy tale who follows a beckoning songbird far from home into unrecognizable territory, my seed journey began with curiosity and took me to strange places. Sometimes the load seemed heavy and the road looked long-seeds are complicated and puzzling. Other times a seed revealed its inner secrets before drifting away on a breeze. The ingenuity of the seeds of this world, not to mention their sheer volume of production, is astounding and real. Many seeds are small, but we should underestimate none of them. What they contain and do is huge, mysterious, and important. This book highlights 100 representative seeds, fruits, and pods. Even after settling on fi