Book Review: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

  

What happens when a botanist gets her hand on a book about the meaning of flowers?  She gets one of her quickest reads in years.  

The Book:  The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh is a novel about young Victoria, a girl who is in the foster care system in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The story follows her life from her adolescent years as a foster child, through her emancipation from foster care on to her young adult years.  Victoria was given up as an infant, and she then bounced around the foster care system for 18 years.  The descriptions of her experiences in various potential adoption situations, followed by her life as an adolescent and teen in group homes vividly portrays what many children in the foster care system experience.  

The story may resonate with me because it is set in San Francisco and in the North Coast viticultural area of California.  Victoria lives most of her childhood within the San Francisco Bay Area.  Her life really changes when a vineyard owner becomes her guardian.  The vineyard owner, Elizabeth, farms her own land and welcomes young Victoria into her home and teaches her all about grape growing.  Elizabeth also has an extensive lexicon of flowers, knowing the meaning of each flower in the garden.  Elizabeth finds an apt pupil in Victoria, and they form their own language of flowers during their evolving relationship.  

Victoria is a strong willed, and sometimes violent child who has a hard time finding a family that will become her adopted family.  She is taken in by Elizabeth, and almost becomes Elizabeth's daughter, but it doesn't happen.  You see the relationship build, but also how it is marred during their time together.  

Once Victoria turns 18 she is no longer a ward of the state, and she has to find her own way in the world.  Homeless in a park, she finds a job at a flower shop after she wows the owner with the exquisite and meaningful bouquets she presents to her.  Victoria is a natural florist, and can find the perfect flowers for every customer, for every situation and for every need.  Quickly she is indispensable at the flower shop and she is starting to establish herself as an adult in San Francisco.

Victoria does fall in love with someone who understands her affection for flowers.  They form a solid relationship.  All relationships are fraught with problems and misunderstandings, this one is no different.  The relationship is severed, suddenly, by Victoria, and you wonder how she is going to keep herself together.

Reconciliation does happen, on Victoria's terms, and her future happiness is probable.  Reading this story, I really appreciate that Vanessa Diffenbaugh does not paint a portrait of innocence and victimhood in her descriptions of Victoria.  She shows Victoria's faults as well as her talents.  

The Botany:  This book talks about flowers and their meanings.  In Victorian times (it should be noted that our main character is Victoria) flowers and their secret meanings were used to communicate messages between people.  Flowers continue to communicate messages now.  Here are the flowers and their messages that I'm interpreting this this summer:  

Fennel = Strength.  Fennel is growing with abandon in my garden this year.  I spied a flock of goldfinches pecking out fennel seed yesterday, and fennel is a great habitat for Yellow Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars.

Grapevine = Abundance.  With the grapevines being laden with fruit right now, you can see the abundance around you.

Oregano = Joy.  I have planted oregano in every incarnation of it this spring.  Variegated, Greek, Italian.  I hope it brings a lot of joy to my household.

Sage = Good Health and a Long Life.  My sages this year have been so drought tolerant and are thriving everywhere I have them in the garden.  I hope it signals good health and a long life for my family during the pandemic and afterwards.

Wheat = Prosperity.  At the beginning of the pandemic my straw bale sprouted and a small crop of wheat was soon flourishing by my compost pile.  

Scarlet Pimpernel = Change.  Every spring this flower finds itself in my garden, along my walkways and places where I least expect it.  I have a new patch of it coming up in a recently planted flowerbed.  I hope this brings good change.  We could all use it.  

Definitely a well written book.  The Language of Flowers was a fun discovery. 

Book Review: The Food Explorer by Daniel Stone

Earlier this year I stopped in for a book signing in Davis, CA at the Avid Reader bookstore.  Daniel Stone was talking about his new book, The Food Explorer:  The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats.  It was quite insightful to see Daniel Stone in Davis, returning to the town he spent his youth in.  His friends as well as his former farm employer were in attendance.  It was evident from the audience and his subject matter that his exposure to farming had a profound effect on him.  Writing a book about the man who significantly changed United States agriculture was a natural for Daniel.   

The Food Explorer is the story of David Fairchild, the botanist who brought new plants to the US for commercial propagation.  These introduced plants number over 200,000 and include the Meyer lemon, avocados, mangos, hops, vinifera grapes and many types of melons.  Additionally, some of our most cherished plants were introduced by Mr. Fairchild.  The flowering cherry trees that are celebrated in our nation's capital were a treasured, and politically charged, find of this botanist.   He also helped build and improve many of our commercial crops such as cotton, bringing improved strains of it from Egypt.  

This book does a great job of chronicling how David Fairchild became the nation's most important food explorer.  Daniel Stone tells how Fairchild stumbled into plant collection, found his footing in discovering plants, rooted new plants on our soil, and became a pillar of agriculture in Washington DC.  The story includes Fairchild's lucky meeting of a San Francisco bon vivant, Barbour Lathrop.  Mr. Lathrop took Fairchild under his wing and along on his worldwide explorations, all while financing Fairchild's work.  

Daniel Stone also tells about the inner workings of agricultural government agencies and the real problems the farmers of the late 1800's and early 1900's faced.  When Fairchild began his explorations, the US Department of Agriculture was a small agency.  While Fairchild's discoveries were growing, so was the size of the Dept of Ag, with the staff and offices exploding over the course of just a few years.  Farmers had been struggling with scant profits on their crops.  As Fairchild's discoveries took root here, so did isolationist views, and fears of introduced disease and pests.  This book puts that in great perspective, through the view of a plant scientist.  

Many areas of the US have been directly changed by David Fairchild's plant discoveries and propagation.  Florida and California were perfect climates to grow tropical and warm-weather plants that would have withered anywhere else.  His introduction of new varieties of grapes led to the success of the wine industry and the acres of beautiful vineyards we have today.  With his introductions, and successful farming, whole populations of American have been established in new US regions.  

Through his travels and success in plant introduction, David Fairchild was recognized as the most traveled man in the United States.  This gave him a great measure of celebrity.  He was invited to speak to influential groups and to publish his stories in National Geographic and other publications. He met President Theodore Roosevelt, married Alexander Graham Bell's daughter, and was friends with Orville Wright, to mention a few.  

Going to the book signing in Davis was fun for me.  When I attended UC Davis, I was one of the last graduates with a degree in botany.  Now botany has been renamed plant biology.  The average person doesn't know the impact botanists have had on the world around us.  Historically, botanists were included on explorations, asked to settle new colonies and worked to strengthen local environments with plants and their produce.  Having traveled around the world, I have always stopped in the botanical gardens to find out the discoveries and important plants in any country.  So, to read about the exploits and struggles that an early American botanist faced really brought all of my education and experience into perspective.

Book Review: Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

I love a book that you don't want to put down and once you finish it you've learned about new things and have gained insight into other people's lives.  I would say I loved Lab Girl by Hope Jahren.  This book is written by Hope Jahren, recounting her experiences in the science laboratory, in academia and in life.  Hope is a geobiologist who talks about the life of plants--in a riveting way, and also talks about the life of a scientific researcher--in a very personal way.

Lab Girl chronicles Dr. Jahren's life from her childhood in Minnesota, through her undergraduate college days and into her professor and research roles.  Hope incorporates memories and thoughts from her past into tales about plant life and soil science.  This may sound unusual, but Hope does a facinating job of it.  She is unabashedly honest about the struggles she has faced in interpersonal relationships, in the academic setting, and with her own mental health.  

I read this book earlier this year and have had it sitting on my desk waiting for a chance to review it.  I got through this book very quickly, which is always a godsend for me.  But over the last few months I have not forgotten her stories.  These include her loyal lab mate's life living at or below the poverty line on a university's technician's pay.  Living in his beat up van, moving it from public land to abandoned parking lot, all while having a shoddy manual transmission.  

Hope also weaves information about the life cycle, hopes and dreams and the ultimate end of plants' lives.  Talking about paleobotany, academic struggles, successful scientific discoveries and unsuccessful lab disasters, Hope keeps you engaged and rooting for her success.

During the story, Hope also describes her personal struggle with mental health.  She is completely frank and honest about what she has dealt with, what it is like, and how she deals with it.  It can be surprising to hear her revelations, but it makes you so impressed with her commitment to scientific research, and to the people she values around her.  

Her book concludes with a science experiment wrapping up in her botany lab in Hawaii.  She is a full professor at the University of Hawaii.  She has secured a good position for her faithful companion, Bill, and they are finally able to live well.  Hope has married and has a young son.  Life seems to be shining on her.  And out of her contentment came this wonderful book about her life.  Go shine some light on this book, and your knowledge will grow--just like a young seedling!