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When it comes to plants, everyone has their own perspective, personal preferences and approaches. Stefano Mancuso, for example, teaches and researches plants at the University of Florence. The busy professor is not only the editor of the specialist journal "Plant Signaling & Behavior", but also the author of several books about plants. Seven books are also available in German translation. The most recent, "La Pianta del Mondo" (2021), in German "The World of Plants", translated by Andreas Thomsen, has been on the market since 2023 and is presented here.
The second book approaches the topic from the culinary side. Sarah M. Schmidt, a doctor of biology and consultant for food security and agricultural research in Bonn, traveled around the world for many years "to learn more about our crops." After her dissertation, she researched melons, tomatoes, bananas and rice. She published her first book in 2024.
Mancuso has a pronounced “infatuation with these green creatures,” he confesses in the introduction (page 10). He “thought carefully” about the reasons and found an answer. "It's simply because of their enormous numbers and the undeniable fact that they are the source of all life on Earth." Hard numbers back this up. "We animals contribute just 0.3 percent of the biomass, while plants contribute 85 percent." He takes up these facts with playful ease and presents them in an easy-to-read, authentic form that is fun to follow. In eight chapters he provides insights into the history of our society. "Here and there I pick up stories of plants that are connected to events in human history, so that humans and plants merge together in the great epic of life."
Briefly the titles of the eight chapters, which initially arouse curiosity and then often surprise: They are about plants of freedom, the city, the underground, music, time, knowledge, crime and the moon.
Did they know that the elm tree under which angry colonialists gathered on August 14, 1765 (page 24) to vent their displeasure about the taxes of the English crown was henceforth known as "The Liberty Tree"? Liberty trees became widespread in the Old World during the French Revolution. By 1792, more than 60,000 oak trees had been planted in France (page 28), and they are immortalized on the French two-euro coin.
The music chapter (from page 87) is about world-famous violins by Stradivari and Guarneri, i.e. about the Norway spruce wood (Picea abies), which has to play all the pieces. Trees suitable for this must have grown over many years under adverse climatic conditions, which is reflected in even and narrow annual rings. Good violin wood grew during the Little Ice Age between the 15th and 19th centuries (page 91).
The wood theme continues in the chapter Plants of Time, which deals with the development of dendrochronology, which enables absolute age dating using tree annual rings. Mancuso presents the development of this botanical sub-discipline and the search for the oldest tree in the world like a crime novel.
Among other things, palynology, pollen analysis, is presented in the Plants of Crime. Among other things, a murder case from Austria is mentioned on page 163f, which was the first case in the world to be solved through pollen analysis in 1959. All details can be found in an article - apart from the book - by Martina Weber (2012).
Sarah M. Schmidt confesses openly in her debut work: "First of all: eating is my passion. For years I only traveled to countries that had interesting cuisine..." (page 11) and has a clear intention: "With this book I want to make our human knowledge about the plants that we eat, drink, breed and cultivate tangible for each and every one of us." In eleven chapters she tackles apples, bananas, coffee, cocoa, potatoes, cabbage, corn, rice, wheat, citrus fruits as well as sugar cane & sugar beet. Given that there are 250,000 flowering plants, around 3,000 of which are edible, and 150 of which are cultivated on a large scale, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Schmidt tells everything about the plants mentioned from the perspective of a biologist, although - she expressly states - this is not a nutritional guide or a cookbook. No matter where you start, each chapter stands on its own and is full of “aha moments” when it comes to the biology and cultural history of plants. The tips at the end of the chapters are useful. You shouldn't store apples next to bananas and tomatoes because they produce the ripening hormone ethylene, which causes the former to turn brown and the latter to become mushy. A cool cellar or the vegetable compartment in the refrigerator is ideal for apples.
The worldwide triumph of the banana began in the late 19th century with Minor Keith in Costa Rica, who was initially involved in the construction of railways in Central America, but soon discovered that banana cultivation could be a bigger business. This is how the United Fruit Company came into being, from which Chiquita Brands International emerged. "...the first modern multinational corporation and a blueprint for limitless capitalism." (page 43). The banana was the first fruit to be traded globally. The huge monocultures are susceptible to diseases, which are controlled on a large scale with pesticides. This entails enormous environmental impacts. Around 40 percent of production costs are due to pesticides and fertilizers.
Now to one of the most important minor points, the banana curvature. Banana plants look like trees, but are only made of leaves. A cluster with a flower forms in the middle. This creates the fruits, the “fingers”, which is the name for the individual bananas. Several “fingers” form the “hands”. Ten to twelve "hands" form a tuft that can weigh 35 to 50 kilograms and pulls downwards. The fruits seek sunlight and grow upwards, creating the curvature (page 38f).
Another look at the chapter about cabbage (from page 144). Here you can find out how the inconspicuous wild cabbage became the "most versatile and important vegetable plant in the world". Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kohlrabi, broccoli and kale are the botanical evidence of its diversity. Finally, a tip: Kohlrabi leaves contain a lot of vitamin C, carotene, calcium and iron and are a healthy change.
Conclusion: I don't have a strong affinity for plants. But I really fell into Mancuso's "World of Plants" as well as Schmidt's "No Mosquitoes, No Chocolate." Both books are informative, easy to read and entertaining. They fascinate with the passion and passion with which they were written. They captivate with Mancuso's first-person form or with unusual images from Schmidt, who in the chapter on apples on the subject of pollination describes bees as "sex workers" (page 16). (Thomas Hofmann, February 6, 2026)