Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2023 -

Historian Shinozuka (Soka Univ. of America) offers a well-crafted text, yet one that is neither an easy read nor easy to put down. The author weaves together little-known horticultural threads over a framework of more than a half century of US history, beginning with the burning of the first shipment of Japanese cherry trees to Washington, DC--a gift from the Japanese government. Shinozuka then traces the development of invasive species awareness and compares the racism directed towards Asian people with the biases that were crafted about species (plants and insects) considered to have come from the transpacific region. Shinozuka calls out the assumptions that were projected onto species as well as onto Japanese immigrants, who often worked in the nursery trade and agriculture, facing barriers in other sectors. This text appears at a strategic time, as many diverse groups are being scapegoated today because of their unique history. Shinozuka shows that this phenomenon is not only an injustice that has played out over significant parts of US history, but also an outgrowth of empire. This book will broaden the reader's understanding of botany, the nursery trade, and invasive species regulations while offering rare insights into the different historical figures and groups that have shaped the story.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. Students in two-year technical programs. General readers.

Plants and people are intertwined in complex ways, as Knapp (Natural History Museum, London) explores in passionate detail. Diversity and environmental conservation inform the 30 alphabetically arranged entries, each one revealing the namesake for a particular plant genus. The diversity of individuals represented is impressive, ranging from presidents to prisoners and including celebrities, linguists, royalty, slaves, and of course scientists. Moreover, the plants themselves are equally diverse, running from ferns to mosses but also including grasses and parasites as well as conifers--and of course plants with beautiful flowers. Many of the plants represented are endemic to tropical hot spots of biodiversity, but many others are found in deserts or alpine sites. The narratives explain how artists, scientists, and explorers have given noteworthy names to plants from memorable places to honor individuals with special relationships to them. Many high-quality illustrations are featured, including drawings, images of pressed specimens, and photographs of field sites where the plants discussed were collected. Each entry emphasizes the particular impact of its story in the course of scientific development. The prose is awkward in places, and it is no surprise that scientists sometimes make unscientific decisions. Scientists are people, after all. Readers are advised to focus on the big picture and enjoy this delightful learning experience.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

What happens below ground in forests and fields is critical to the success of plants and plant communities. The vast network of fungal filaments in soil and colonizing plant roots contributes to the success of individual plants and community establishment. These fungal-plant associations are termed mycorrhizae. Most plants form mycorrhizae, and the fungi involved belong to several groups within the kingdom Fungi. These fungi associate beneficially with plants, providing increased uptake of minerals and water. Mycorrhizal fungi form a below-ground network that often connects multiple individuals within a population. This book offers a broad overview of mycorrhizal systems--what they do, what fungi are involved, how they contribute to plant populations and communities, and ultimately how essential they are to successful balance in ecosystems. Allen (emer., Univ. of California, Riverside) provides historical background and evaluates experimental evidence regarding the activity and importance of these mutualistic relationships, including a detailed overview of the related literature. With 800 entries, this is one of the most complete bibliographies available. Illustrations, photographs, diagrams, and a basic glossary aid readers. Explanatory sidebars expand on selected concepts. This comprehensive work is perfect for advanced students or faculty taking up research on mycorrhizae but could also be appreciated by amateur botanists and gardeners.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty. General readers.

Picking up a monument-sized book that starts with an avuncular explanation that the term photosynthesis means "to put together with light" may not inspire confidence that the book will be a worthwhile investment of an established scientist's time. However, this reader was soon persuaded by the author's sturdy wordsmithing, the supporting 427 patiently explicative pen-and-ink illustrations, and the text's astonishing natural history detailing what may be found on the branches, leaves, roots, and trunks of trees. For example, who knew that the hairy junctures between the veins on sycamore leaves appear to house beneficial symbionts and an entire zoo full of predators and prey? How would a student stumble on this information without an author such as Nardi (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)? The value of books such as this one--that ask seemingly silly questions such as "who lives on trees?"--is that the typical barriers between various academic disciplines quickly break down, overriding more experienced readers' potential objections. The wandering-through-the-woods aspect of the book is made tractable by the generous 448-entry index and scientifically rigorous by the 166 citations to the literature providing multiple avenues for further study.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Lichens are unique organisms resulting from the symbiosis of a fungus and an alga that can tolerate the most extreme conditions. Their life expectancy is longer than that of humans but shorter than a geologic era, thus enabling one to conceive of a coexistent life-world operating at a different time scale than the world humans are currently driving toward a questionable future. Lichens are a limited resource: they refuse to grow in a petri dish, thus resisting cultivation for exploitation. The Lichen Museum project Palmer (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) describes includes all the lichens one can possibly observe, collect, classify, and study, if one is so inclined, and is an attempt to construct a pathway to an alternative world in which the ethos of interdependence might supersede that of individualism, competition, and exploitation. As an environmentally engaged artist, Palmer introduces readers to lichens through personal observations, extensive research, and critical evaluation of past and current scientific study of this complex living organism and offers her musings on the potential philosophical and poetic implications of these symbiotic organisms. As a companion to the eponymous conceptual art project, this book invites cogitation on environmental and social concerns through the lens of an inconspicuous, omnipresent life form.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.