The Plant Messiah

Carlos Magdalena is the Tropical Senior Botanical Horticulturist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and an international lecturer. He is renowned for his unique skills as a plant propagator who is saving the world's rarest plants.

Thisfull-throttle memoiris a window on the exploits that underpin the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . . . reveals the rare mix of zeal and patience needed to hunt vanishing plants
Impressive, gripping and important. . . Some 30,000 plants have recorded uses for humans. Most people, the messiah preaches, are blind to these everyday miracles. This book will teach them to see
For anyone who might have considered plants dull stuff, Mr. Magdalena delivers a thrilling and inspirational account of adventures in the botanical world.
In a world whose ecology is changing so fast, only a special kind of obsessive would concern himself with saving endangered plant species. That's Magdalena... who recounts adventures that have taken him from the Amazon to the jungles of Mauritius on a quest to preserve as much flora as he can.
An engaging piece of work
Eye-popping...The Plant Messiahreads like a detective novel. [This] isa thrillingly uplifting book. There is a beguiling energy to his prose that clearly he has in person
Botany, on its face, doesn't sound particularly thrilling. This book will change your mind
An entertaining, planterly romparound the world and a glimpse inside one of the world's great botanical institutions from this Kew botanist
[I]t is fascinating to follow Magdalena as he travels from remote Australian billabongs full of rare water lilies to the dry forests of western Peru, where the last gnarled huarango trees grow in the shadow of the Andes. But the greater accomplishment ofThe Plant Messiahis the compelling case that Magdalena makes from caring about plants in general.
Carlos Magdalena is Kew's codebreaker
He has the uncanny ability to bring plants back from the brink of extinction
Carlos is an inspiration to me. He's the perfect spokesperson for the plants of the world
Carlos has been able to achieve things with plants that no one else can do