Stories of pioneers, fugitives, veterans, fighters, hermits, men of time: the (incredible) stories of plants.

If we look at plants without our ‘animal’- filtered- eyes, their extraordinary characteristics emerge very clear and indubitable. Their invaluable characteristics are noticeable everywhere, even in areas where it seems unlikely, as, for example, in their ability to move. When we talk about migrations, we should study the plants to understand that these phenomena are unstoppable.

What we know about plants is very little, and often, mostly wrong. We are convinced that plants are not able to perceive the environment that surrounds them, while in reality they are more sensitive than animals. We seem to be sure that it is a silent environment, incapable to communicate, yet, instead, the plants are great communicators. We believe they do not hold any kind of social relationship, yet, once again, instead they are purely social organisms. We are, above all, very certain that the plants are still. On this we are adamant. Plants do not move, after all, just look at them. Nothing could be more false!

Although plants cannot move in the course of their individual lives, from generation to generation they are able to conquer the most distant lands, the most inaccessible areas and the less hospitable regions for life. All this with enviable stubbornness and adaptability. Of course, the plants are incredibly different from animals: their body, their architecture, their strategies are often diametrically opposed. We will never be able to understand plants if we look at them as if they were disfigured animals. They are simply a different form of life, no more or less simple or developed than animals.

This book tells us wonderful and surprising stories: stories of plant movement, of the unstoppable expansion that is so unknown to most people. How plants ‘convince’ animals to transport them around the world, or how some plants need particular animals to spread. Or also, how they have been able to grow in places so inaccessible and inhospitable to remain isolated in the end; how they resisted the atomic bomb and the Chernobyl disaster; how they are able to bring life on sterile islands; how they can travel through the ages, as they sail around the world. These are just some of the stories we will find in this illustrated book with the poetic watercolors of Grisha Fisher.