From its roots in ancient Greek herbal medicine, the popular spirit we now know as gin was established by the Dutch in the sixteenth century as a juniper-infused tincture to cure fevers. It gained notoriety during the London 'gin craze' in the eighte...

This magnificent compendium is the fourth in a series of catalogues describing selections of rare books and other material in the Oak Spring Garden Library, a collection assembled by Mrs. Rachel "Bunny" Lambert Mellon. Herbaria describes sixty-three...

Some of Henry David Thoreau's most beautiful nature writing was inspired by the flowering trees and plants of Concord. An inveterate year-round rambler and journal keeper, he faithfully recorded, dated, and described his sightings of the floating wat...

Natural history in the eighteenth century was many things to many people – diversion, obsession, medically or economically useful knowledge, spectacle, evidence for God's providence and wisdom, or even the foundation of all natural knowledge. Because...

In this insightful and provocative book Alon Tal provides a detailed account of Israeli forests, tracing their history from the Bible to the present, and outlines the effort to transform drylands and degraded soils into prosperous parks, rangelands a...