Seed to Seed

March 13, 2006
Even the most hardcore city dweller will be moved by British plant biologist Harberd's look at the life cycle of the thale cress plant, as he records not only the stages of a single species through one year but also provides an outline of "the unseen molecular forces that drive plants from stage to stage." Harberd engagingly shows how this common but ignored garden plant, with its short life span and small genome, is perfect for the plant geneticist, "our own Drosophila
(fruit-fly)." Once scientists have determined its entire DNA sequence, they will be able to "get to grips with solving some of the most important questions in plant biology." Most enjoyable are Harberd's passionate observations—from the "exhilarating" results of stem cell behavior to how the "awesome velocity" of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring
reminds him of the "brutal in Nature"—and how he successfully uses those observations to convey a view that "the world is a whole" and that even the most common plant can help us "see ourselves as part of something sacred. Perhaps even redefine our science as something sacramental." Illus.

June 1, 2006
Plant geneticist Harberd heads a Norwich (UK) lab that studies "Arabidopsis thaliana "(mouse-eared cress), a small plant in the mustard family. Although he has written this book in diary form, he reveals little about himself or his relationships with the other researchers in the lab. Instead, Harberd devotes most of the text to lecturing readers on plant anatomy and plant genetics. To make his lessons more accessible, he describes a year in the life of a wild "Arabidopsis "plant that he finds growing in a churchyard; however, because the plant leads a short and uneventful life, this information adds little interest. Although Harberd claims to be writing for nonscientists, his target audience is unlikely to find the pages of textbooklike material interesting. An optional purchase for large botany collections." -Erin Watson, Univ. of Saskatchewan Lib., Saskatoon"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2006
Harberd indicates that this book is an attempt to show how science can enhance our vision of the world; it is written, then, principally for nonscientists. The author, one of the world's leading plant geneticists, describes the developing understanding of how and why plants grow. He explains that experiments are revealing the hidden fundamentals of how the growth of plants is controlled. The book is in the form of a diary of the year 2004, its focus on one small weed in a country churchyard in Norfolk, England, the thale-cress. Harberd comments on the weather ("The sky a salad of dampness; grays, blues, and yellows, all speeding in one direction"). He writes of his search for thale-cress ("What I'd found was a curved line of three, six feet above the remains [in a grave] buried below the ground.)" With 46 black-and-white sketches and diagrams, this book contains some descriptions of plant biology that geneal readers may not nderstand, but his intriguing narrative is not to missed.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)