‘I let my mind go through a strange transformation. It was as if I clambered through the limbs of the tree of life, passing each of our animal forbears - the primates, early mammals, bony fish, all of the invertebrates…back in evolutionary time to the ancient single-celled common ancestor of animals and plants nearly 1.5 billion years ago. I then began a mysterious ascent through an alien photosynthetic dynasty, all the way to the family of the plant I was watching’
Using cutting-edge science, Planta Sapiens offers an imaginative leap into the inner world of plants, one which is so close and yet so alien. It points the way to expanding our understanding of our own minds and our place in the world.
‘fascinating’
Michael Pollan, author of This is Your Mind on Plants, via Twitter
‘an absorbing exploration of the many ways that plants rise to the challenge of living’
Merlin Sheldrake, author of Entangled Life
‘bold and brave paean to our planet’s ligneous, leafy kingdom’
Jackie Higgins, author of Sentient, in The Telegraph
‘a genuinely mind-expanding book’
P.D. Smith, The Guardian
Natalie Lawrence is an author and illustrator who explores our relationship with the natural world, looking through multiple lenses - from the biological to the psychoanalytic. She has a first-class MCantab in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, during which she spent most of her time in the Zoology department. She then succumbed to the dark side (Arts), receiving a MSc and Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge, working on the cultural creation of monsters and how they allow us to relate to the world.
Natalie published her first book when she was a teenager, Feathers and Eggshells, inspired by her favourite place, Hampstead Heath and the birds she had been entranced by since she was young. She has given a TedX talk, appeared on BBC Woman’s hour, and worked with installation artists. She currently lives in London, teaches biology, and writes in a room filled with plants and specimens from her natural history collection, from megalodon teeth to hornbill skulls. Occasionally she is joined by live giant silkmoths.