“A SEED hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible” goes the Welsh proverb that lends this fascinating book its title. Focusing on seeds, ecologist has written a witty and charming introduction to the evolutionary wiles of the plant kingdom. Who knew, for instance, that we enjoy beer thanks to yeast’s devious scheme to poison fermenting barley seeds with alcohol, denying their nutrients to other microorganisms?
Cooking and eating become evolutionary subversions, too, in Silvertown’s entertaining company, as humans exploit the extraordinary biochemical ingenuity of plants, and vice versa. If the apple is the…
