Plant Explorers

Steve and his companions have been offered a chance, the slimmest of hopes, that the UC—whatever that is—will protect the earth. That protection, offered as it is with the full knowledge that it could embroil billions in a new war? It's never going to come cheap. The UC wants something, and it's down to Steve to figure out how to pay that debt or survive without their sheltering hand. The greater galaxy is a harsh place, and in the eyes of those who battle to keep the flame of freedom alive another day, anyone who would give up their freedom to gain a little security?

C.J. Cherryh's second trilogy set in her Foreigner Universe comes to a thrilling conclusion with Explorer. The final installment to this sequence of the Hugo Award-winning author's most successful series, Explorer follows a human delegate trapped in a distant star system facing a potentially bellicose alien ship.

Truly a medicine for body and soul, one of cannabis’ greatest gifts is its remarkable potential for spiritual healing and awakening. In this authoritative guide, editor Stephen Gray and 17 other influential voices of the modern cannabis movement explore the spiritual benefits of cannabis and offer guidance on how to interact with the intelligence of this plant ally, a companion and supporter of humanity for millennia.

The great voyages of discovery to the New World are here brought to life by one of the 20th century's most eminent historians, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Samuel Morison. A master seaman himself, Morison personally retraced the voyages of the early explorers, charting his travels in maps and photographs and comparing these to the maps and travelogues of the early sailors.

In this intoxicating concoction of history, travelogue, and memoir, one of the perfume industry’s leading scouts of natural ingredients tells the story of the precious ingredients needed to make our favorite fragrances.

In this installment, Leah the biology expert and Gustavo the history buff are whisked away on a mission to a forest in North Carolina, USA. There, they meet a botanist working to protect the amazing Venus flytrap - an endangered species of plant - from being stolen by poachers and sold for money. It'll take every bit of brainpower, bravery, and expertise that Leah and Gustavo have to stop the poachers and rescue the plants.

With three hearts and blue blood, its gelatinous body unconstrained by jointed limbs or gravity, the octopus seems to be an alien, an inhabitant of another world. It’s baggy, boneless body sprouts eight arms covered with thousands of suckers—suckers that can taste as well as feel. The octopus also has the powers of a superhero: it can shape-shift, change color, squirt ink, pour itself through the tiniest of openings, or jet away through the sea faster than a swimmer can follow.

As a child, Chris Thorogood dreamed of seeing Rafflesia - the plant with the world's largest flowers. Today he is a botanist at the University of Oxford's Botanic Garden and has dedicated his life to studying the biology of such extraordinary plants, working alongside botanists and foresters in Southeast Asia to document these huge, mysterious blooms. Pathless Forest is the story of his journey to study and protect this remarkable plant - a biological enigma, still little understood, which invades vines as a leafless parasite and steals its food from them.

Explorer, naturalist and president of Britain's Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks was a larger-than-life character best known for his promotion of science. In 1768 Banks joined Captain James Cook's expedition to the South Pacific. The 30,000 specimens he brought back generated enormous interest, as did the sometimes racy written account of the journey, which chronicled his frequent amorous exploits.