The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World’s Rarest Species

This full-throttle memoir is a window on the exploits that underpin the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . . . reveals the rare mix of zeal and patience needed to hunt vanishing plants * Nature * Impressive, gripping and important . . . Some 30,000 plants have recorded uses for humans. Most people, the messiah preaches, are blind to these everyday miracles. This book will teach them to see * Economist * For anyone who might have considered plants dull stuff, Mr. Magdalena delivers a thrilling and inspirational account of adventures in the botanical world. * Wall Street Journal * In a world whose ecology is changing so fast, only a special kind of obsessive would concern himself with saving endangered plant species. That's Magdalena... who recounts adventures that have taken him from the Amazon to the jungles of Mauritius on a quest to preserve as much flora as he can. * New York Times Book Review * An engaging piece of work -- Charles Elliott * Literary Review * Eye-popping... The Plant Messiah reads like a detective novel. [This] is a thrillingly uplifting book. There is a beguiling energy to his prose that clearly he has in person * Daily Mail * Botany, on its face, doesn't sound particularly thrilling. This book will change your mind -- Bill McKibben, New York Times bestselling author of 'Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet' and 'Radio Free Vermont' An entertaining, planterly romp around the world and a glimpse inside one of the world's great botanical institutions from this Kew botanist -- Jane Owen * Financial Times * [I]t is fascinating to follow Magdalena as he travels from remote Australian billabongs full of rare water lilies to the dry forests of western Peru, where the last gnarled huarango trees grow in the shadow of the Andes. But the greater accomplishment of The Plant Messiah is the compelling case that Magdalena makes from caring about plants in general. * Los Angeles Times * Carlos Magdalena is Kew's codebreaker * Telegraph * He has the uncanny ability to bring plants back from the brink of extinction * People of London * Carlos is an inspiration to me. He's the perfect spokesperson for the plants of the world -- Jane Goodall, primatologist and UN Messenger of Peace Carlos has been able to achieve things with plants that no one else can do -- Richard Barley, director of horticulture, Kew