The Sceptical Botanist

The Sceptical Botanist: Separating Fact from Fiction (CSIRO Publishing). Publication date 1 August 2025. Available now to preorder: CSIRO Publishing, Angus Robertson, Booktopia, Amazon

This is what I've being doing instead of posting to my blog!

As I said on social media recently, book blurbs are getting a bit of a bad rap of late, but I can't help but reproduce the kind words penned by Professor Jonathan Drori, CBE, author and former Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

A humane and humorous foray into the world of plants, their relationships with people, and revealingly, into the mind of a sceptical botanist. 

These short essays contain so many important and enjoyable insights. From vexed questions about GM foods and whether trees are intelligent, to his delightful personal experiences across the botanical world, Entwisle is a confident explorer and guide. Whether he’s exploring our relationships with  plants, the way that scientists think, or the reasons for some very unnatural beliefs about nature, his  humour, integrity and lightly-worn knowledge shine through.

Or, as the publisher puts it:

Beautifully crafted essays that explore everyday questions about plants and gardens

Do trees talk to one another? Can a plant use up the oxygen in a room while you sleep? What is a native plant and what is a weed? Are some plants truly immortal?

Through 50 beautifully crafted essays, former director of preeminent botanic gardens and self-confessed plant punk Tim Entwisle shines a gentle light on everyday questions about plants and gardens, guiding the reader through fact and fiction.

Including the best of his contributions to gardening magazines and newspapers over four decades, as well as 24 pieces written specially for this book, The Sceptical Botanist is a tour de force of investigative writing from one of Australia’s most thoughtful and inquisitive botanical minds.

Pick up The Sceptical Botanist and you’ll never look at a plant or garden in the same way again!

And, including light-hearted cartoons for each essay by Jerome Entwisle!

What more can I add to all this apart from do buy the book and decide for yourself. This is what you'll find inside:

1. What makes plants tick

    Stupid plants

    Heard it on the grapevine

    Touchy subject

    Breath of fresh air

    Nature by numbers

    It’s flowering time

    Hungry leaves

    The burning question

    True blue

    Boom and bust

2. Plants from elsewhere

    Drifting on ancient currents

    Exotic plants face a prickly reception

    First Australian plants

    Browned off

    Bad blood

    Boab dreaming

    Palm gods from the north

    Handful of beans

    The weed-erness

    What if weeds?

    Sceptical Botanist

3. Garden plants and landscapes

    Guiltfree planting

    Immortal plants don’t live forever

    Tree branches ahead

    Killing a tree makes room for more life

    The multicultural garden

    Patriotism in the Victorian garden

    Top five ‘first’ botanic gardens

    For pleasure and ornament

    Gardening in a post-modern world

4. Gardening with convictions

    Converted to seaweed

    Synthetic or organic, but minimise harm

    Uncompanionable planting

    Over your dead body

    Glyphosate, punished for the sins of its inventors?

    Commodified genes or just more of the same?

    Wood-wide web unravels

    Rhizosphere revealed

    The Moon factor

5. Observing and cataloguing nature

    Blood may flow over the wattle

    You say boab, I say that’s OK

    New species are where you find them

    Enjoy nature kids, but keep your gadget handy

    I accept extinction, reluctantly

    Eager for spring in London

    Australia should scrap the four seasons

    It is time to ditch Victoria’s floral emblem

    Decolonising nomenclature

    Giving a rat’s about trees

    Botany on road to extinction

    Let’s sing the praises of taxonomists

Epilogue