How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature’s Revolutionaries

Flowers “belong at the center of the story of how our world came to be,” argues biologist Haskell (Sounds Wild and Broken) in this passionate examination. Compared to other lifeforms, flowers were “latecomers,” evolving after many complex animals in the fossil record some 150–200 million years ago. The plants quickly diversified and became “champion relationship-builders,” as insects, birds, and other animals came to rely on them for food and shelter. Haskell explains how the study of goatsbeard helped scientists discover that some flowering plants duplicate their genomes, a process that allows them to adapt and evolve. The flexibility of plant genetics enabled the development of important crops that supported agrarian civilizations, like wheat, oats, potato, and cotton. Grass, another flowering plant, has also been key to sustaining human populations, building organic and fertile soils and forming a large portion of the calories people consume (rice, maize, and wheat are all grasses). Elsewhere, Haskell demonstrates how flowers elucidate the past—Carl Linnaeus’s classification of flowers in the 18th century helped usher in the theory of evolution—and offer lessons for the future, such as “thriving worlds grow from cooperation.” Through deep research and lyrical prose, Haskell triumphantly recasts the role of flowers as foundational to humanity. This is astonishing. (Mar.)