The Incredible Journey of Plants summary

Imagine sitting down to a classic Italian meal. What dishes are on the table? Maybe some pasta smothered in a rich ragu or a piping hot margarita pizza. Surely, nothing could be more authentically Italian.

But that feast is actually more foreign than it appears. The basil on the pizza isn’t native to Italy. It originally grew only in central India – that is, until Alexander the Great brought it back to what’s now Italy sometime in the 350s BCE. The tomato arrived even later. Explorer Hernan Cortes imported it from the Americas in 1540.

In the early 1900s, August Engelhardt discovered the key to eternal life. At least, he thought he did. The eccentric German nudist believed a diet consisting solely of coconuts would grant him perfect health. To test his theory, he moved to the South Pacific, where he set up a colony dedicated to this vision. 

Unfortunately for Engelhardt and the dozens of disciples who followed his teachings, the hard-shelled tropical delicacy didn’t deliver immortality. Those who attempted the all-coconut diet soon died of malnutrition. 

It’s the turn of the twentieth century. Auguste Renoir, the famed Impressionist painter, is spending his last years in Provence, France. Here, he passes his days lolling in the shade and painting the local olive trees. Today, Renoir is long gone, but the very trees he painted are still alive and thriving.

That’s impressive. But these olive trees are just babies compared to Old Tjikko, a Norway spruce growing in Sweden. This tree began its life more than 9,000 years ago when humans were just discovering agriculture. And Tjikko itself is just a baby compared to Pando, a colony of genetically identical poplar trees in Utah. This organism can trace its roots back some 80,000 years.

Picture a vast and barren desert. A dry, sun-soaked panorama with nothing but sand as far as the horizon. Now, imagine that among the dunes stands a single, solitary tree. This is the Tree of Ténéré, once known as the loneliest tree in the world. 

For centuries, the Tree of Ténéré eked out an existence in an isolated corner of the Sahara, the only plant for hundreds of miles. Its unusual isolation lent it a poetic presence, and it served as a landmark for lonesome camel caravans crossing the area. 

The Amazon is one of the most biodiverse habitats on the planet. But all that life means fierce competition for space and resources. So, when it’s time for plants to propagate their next generation, they must spread their seeds as far away as possible. This pressure results in some astounding strategies.

Consider the Hura crepitans, sometimes called a dynamite tree. It takes matters into its own hands. This unusual organism has evolved specialized fruit that burst when ripe. These biological bombs launch the tree’s seeds at more than 200 feet per second. The seeds sometimes land more than 120 feet away!