Anatomy of a Rose: Exploring the Secret Life of Flowers by Sharman Apt Russell

Delphinium.
Red Skyrocket (or it's formal name: Ipomopsis Aggregata).
Philodendron Selloum (The only plant I've ever been able to grow!).
La Reina de la Noche (Queen of the Night).
Monkshood.
Pale Lousewort (Wait a minute - didn't I date him once?).
Elephant's Head.

I like to think that a person is a reader because they simply love words. (As a child, I used to read the dictionary as if it were a novel - an illuminating mystery of words.) And with such delicious words for the waving stems we so often pass with hardly a notice how can a reader not fall head first into Anatomy of a Rose: Exploring the Secret Life of Flowers by Sharman Apt Russell.

Words aside, in a collection of sixteen essays ostensively about plants, Sharman reminds us that we are not the center of the universe, no matter what we think.

The life of flowers she gently lays bare for our blind eyes to see (the second essay titled "The Blind Voyeur" in fact instructs the reader on how much we will never see - because there is a whole spectrum of colors that we literally cannot see - intended for the sight of bees) exist not to delight us but to accomplish that most important of tasks in an organism's life - reproduction.

And oh what a task that is. Enticement. Deception. Destruction. Dissolution. Delight. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?)

Sharman's descriptions of the "romantic" strategies of plants, is delightfully and resolutely scientific. But reading the facts of a plant's life brought to my mind the last line L.L. Cool J. says in his song "Back Seat of My Jeep" - the question "Everything is sexual?".

Oh yeah.

No wonder the lecture on the parts of the flower is school's first tentative attempt at the birds and the bees.

Sharman brings back the memory of that old school days lesson in her essay on the parts of the flower (I love the Parts of a Flower illustration in the book -- I recognized it at once from grade school!), gives a quick lesson on vision or the lack there of, speaks of time, competion and cooperation.

And it's not just botany. Zoology, paleontology, climatology all get a turn in the sun the sunflowers turn to. (Speaking of climate - she caught me off guard with her reference to that terrible summer here in the Midwest a few years ago when so many died.) Sharman's pose is so accessible that you pause sometimes surprised to realize that you're reading science - and plenty of it!

It gets 5 roses from me (or 5 thorns if you're that kind of person). Do yourself a favor this summer, grab a copy and settle down for a glimpse of that secret world all around us.

Ideally in a garden.

(An absolute aside: I LOVED the feel of this book! As you can see above it has a lovely cover and, at only 4 3/4 inches by 7 1/4 inches, fits the hand like a glove. But the feel of the cover is absolutely lux! I don't know how they did it, but the cover has a soft feel that makes you just want to hold it. A lovely plus!)