Peter Bernhardt's “THE ROSE'S KISS: A NATURAL HISTORY OF FLOWERS”

A book review by Dennis D. McDonald

I started paying serious attention to flowers last year. My son gave me a camera that takes decent closeups. I started carrying the camera while walking our dog by the creek near our house and while working in our yard.

I realized quickly that there was a lot going on as the seasons changed that I didn’t understand. I resolved to learn something about plant life. This book, borrowed from our local public library, is one of my attempts to remedy that problem.

The author has packed an amazing amount of scientific information into this book while maintaining a very clear and clean writing style. I constantly find myself amazed by what I’m reading as I tell myself, “I had no idea flowers and plants were this complicated!”

One of the things I enjoy is that the book is not “dumbed down.” If you’re seriously interested in flowers and how they grow, operate, and die, this author seems to be saying, “I’m not going to kid you; you really need to know these things if you want to understand.”

Bernhardt provides a mixture of botany, science history, biology, physics, cell division, genetics, and horticulture, all in order to provide the reader with a sophisticated understanding of flowers.

If you do read this book, you’ll never again look at a blossom and just think, “Oh, that’s pretty.” You’ll also begin to have an understanding of what’s really going on. In my book, that’s a Very Good Thing.

Review copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald