Talking Plants

Late last year, after a few-month hiatus in posting anything here - an odd consequence of finishing up as Director at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, finding I had more time on my hands alongside a fear of whittling it away - I refashioned Talking Plants into a blog about oaks. That served me reasonably well as I wrote chapters for my 'book about oaks', allowing me to test my hand and my knowledge. I got some useful responses and corrections - thank you - and found plenty of untidy writing among what I had thought was final copy for the book.  That project continues, so you may get more posts about oaks. However, I'm hoping/planning/wanting to supplement these with stories about other plants. I thought that rather than open up again to all aspects of the botanical world (plants, gardens, the occasional alga and fungus), I'd narrow the focus a little, but this time to flowers. Or maybe even more broadly, in preparation for my forthcoming book 'The Sceptical Botanist&