Carole T. Gee is a paleobotanist, botanist, and professor of paleontology at the University of Bonn in Germany. She is the author of Plants in Mesozoic Time: Morphological Innovations, Phylogeny, Ecosystems, and the coauthor of Fossilization: Understanding the Material Nature of Ancient Plants and Animals. Channing Redford is an architect who studied botanical art and illustration at the New York Botanical Garden.
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Description
Preface: The Making of a Plant Lover Part I 1. Living Fossils: Morphological Look-Alikes, Tenacious Survivors, and Relict Members of Ancient Lineages 2. Cyanobacteria and Stromatolites: The Toughest and Longest-Lived Green Survivors Part II 3. Standing Tall 4. Clubmosses & Co. 5. The Horsetail or Scouring Rush Equisetum 6. Ferns and Tree Ferns Part III 7. Bearing Seeds and Woody Cones 8. Cycads 9. The Maidenhair Tree Ginkgo 10. Araucarias, Kauris, and the Wollemi Pine 11. Podocarps 12. The Dawn Redwood Metasequoia 13. The Japanese Umbrella Pine Sciadopitys Part IV 14. Coming Into Flower 15. The Waterlilies Nymphaea and Nuphar 16. The Sacred Lotus Nelumbo 17. The Mangrove Palm Nypa Index
Carole Gee has produced a personal and engaging book that will educate and satisfy the botanical community—nature enthusiasts, gardeners, and botanists of all genres—about the deep time history of plants growing on Earth today. Her distinctive mix of science and personal experience with each chapters species makes for an enjoyable read.
— Robert A. Gastaldo, Colby College, author and editor of Nature Through Time
A fast-paced and beautifully illustrated tour through the most interesting aspects of some of the unique plants in our modern world. Unique because, although they are unusual and often unfamiliar to us today, they show in strikingly vivid detail and color the types of vegetation that dominated landscapes millions of years ago, sometimes well before the dinosaurs.
— John Foster, Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum, author of Jurassic West: The Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and Their World
This is a wonderful book of botanical pilgrimages, from stromatolite-teaming Shark Bay in Australia to fog-enshrouded forests of Japanese umbrella pine: a plant-centric travelogue through deep geological time and space, teaming with botanical facts and personal anecdotes, as Carole Gee ponders whether the plants in her beautifully written and researched book qualify as living fossils.
— Jennifer C. McElwain, Trinity College Dublin, author of Tropical Arctic
Rooted In Time leads us through the evolutionary pageantry of new plant forms evolving, rising to stardom, becoming dominant, losing out to new arrivals, but hanging on, somewhere, somehow: horsetails and clubmosses relegated to supporting roles, trees such as umbrella pines or ginkgo thrown back to tiny relic areas. Time travel with plants—a fascinating read on our green planet.
— Maximilian Weigend, Bonn University Botanic Gardens
Rooted in Time is a testament to a life spent loving and studying plants. Approachable and heartfelt, Gees work is filled with stories that build bridges between the plants of today and botanical relics of the past. With both beautifully illustrated watercolors and vibrant photos, this book will educate and inspire those who are curious about the longevity of plants over paleontological time. Highly recommended for gardeners, horticulturalists, and budding botanists of all ages.
— Nicole Cavender, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens