Ben Dark

Vividly and poetically, the author offers us an incredible, long-distance overview, as if he has a magic pair of prehistoric binoculars . . . There’s a wow fact on every page . . . dizzying, thrilling . . . Few nature books I’ve read expand the mind so lyrically and effortlessly as this guide to our miraculous green world

An absolute delight . . . Green Kingdom is not just a joy to read, it is the kind of book that makes you see differently . . . Book of the year, for me

What an awesome book. Illuminating, fascinating and superbly researched. Ben Dark is a master storyteller. I learned something on every page

Utterly fascinating. I don't expect to read a better work of natural history this year

[Dark’s] book’s energetic cultural history and human entanglements . . . carry you through. He rises splendidly to the challenge of keeping a general reader well entertained

Dark writes with flair, wit and occasional lyricism . . . a sharp eye for the telling anecdote . . . beguiling . . . it is as a cultural historian that he really shines. The book is crammed with intriguing nuggets gathered from art, literature and history . . . You’ll find many such gems in Green Kingdom

Ben Dark is a fantastic writer: his ability to relate science through story is both brilliant and rare, and Green Kingdom – in its palatial scope, beautiful phrasing and companionable humanity – is an extraordinary example of his brimming talent and a hugely enjoyable read

With this new odyssey of plant evolution, Ben Dark emerges as a natural history writer of spectacular gifts. He tacks with enviable deftness between the microscopic and the cosmically immense, between the backward chasm of the past and the friendly minutiae of modern life, between hard science and the flowerings of human artistry. He can make a history of mosses into an adventure story full of luck and danger, monsters and meteorites. His prose is both lucid and beautiful, and often witty. A wonderful book

NICOLA SHULMAN, author of Graven with Diamonds

Magnificently researched, captivatingly written and philosophically meaty, Green Kingdom skilfully weaves together the wonder of botanical evolution with human history and folklore to create a profound yet joyfully entertaining read. Dammit, if I had written this, I would die happy

JONATHAN DRORI, author of Around the World in 80 Plants

A book that traverses deep time and takes the reader on a wondrous journey through the kingdom of plants. Ben Dark engaged me every step of the way with his elegant mix of storytelling and science

SUE STUART SMITH, author of The Well Gardened Mind

Ben Dark – a worldwide, time-travelling storyteller – introduces us to characters with astonishing tales to tell. In Green Kingdom, Dark wears his scholarship lightly and brilliantly, weaving an epic narrative with botanical research. His curiosity and enthusiasm make for an unputdownable read

MARY KEEN, author of Diary of a Keen Gardener

Green Kingdom reads like an adventure story, a love story, a history, a celebration and a revelation of the wonders of plant life. An emerald marvel as rich as the kingdom it describes

In Green Kingdom, Ben Dark, gardener extraordinaire and plant historian, gives plants their due: an epic story of 500 million years of evolution and adaptation, from the simplest bog mosses to ferns and evergreens to grasses and flowers and towering jungle trees. Through Dark’s light and airy prose, horticulture, history, science, and culture intertwine to celebrate the diversity and resilience of plants

STEVE BRUSATTE, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

Ben Dark has the unusual ability to see both the forest and the trees. Green Kingdom is at once closely observed, wonderfully far-ranging, and sharply written. It is a fascinating account of man's long and tangled association with plants

ELIZABETH KOLBERT, author of The Sixth Extinction

Elegant, erudite and entrancing. This is a book you'll want to read once for its fascinating information and colourful stories, and again, just for the sheer pleasure of it

There aren’t many better garden writers than Ben Dark: he has gift for writing enthrallingly and here, when sharing the family history of sixteen plants, he outdoes himself. Green Kingdom is a joy to read

The Family History of Plants

Most of life on Earth is plant. And yet the half a million species of plant alive today are a minuscule fraction of those that have ever existed. The true story of the plant kingdom’s almost inconceivable variety and ingenuity is to be found in the past. 
 
From the arrival of the first plants on land 484 million years ago to the globe-spanning diversity of flora we know today, Green Kingdom traces the evolution of plant life across aeons and continents, reanimating the lost worlds that shaped its course and dramatically expanding our vision of what it means to be a plant. 
 
Through the stories of sixteen plant families, from the humble bog moss to the exquisite adaptations of the orchid, we witness how plant life colonised land, pioneered leaves, recruited fungi, formed seeds, manipulated animals and ultimately came to dominate our planet. Some take us to unrecognisable earths, buried under twelve thousand years of ice or hidden in the blackout of an asteroid winter, others to a defining event in the planet’s history, from volcanic chain eruptions and sudden glaciations to the gradual parting of continents. 
 
Inhabiting the lives and minds of the adventurers, poets, philosophers and scientists who pieced this epic story together, Green Kingdom is both a hidden history of the Earth and a dynastic drama, as rich and unexpected as any story ever told.

Ben Dark

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