Michael Allaby ~ Scotland
why I endorsed?
If you can't get to Nature, we will bring Nature to you ~ Loven and Hope
Along city streets trees provide shade from the summer sun, shelter from the rain, and their branches and foliage break up the hard outlines of buildings. In autumn children crunch the dry fallen leaves beneath their feet on the way to and from school. In the countryside, tree roots bind soil, reducing erosion and landslides, their foliage intercepts falling rain, reducing its impact on the ground and protecting the soil, they provide shelter, accommodation, nesting sites, and food for countless animals and many smaller plants such as mosses, lichens, and ferns. Trees enrich the world and enrich our lives.
my book on trees & sex
PLANT LOVE: THE SCANDALOUS TRUTH ABOUT THE SEX LIFE OF PLANTS.
Who knew that bee orchids trick insects into having sex with them, avocado flowers are female one day and male the next, and some flowers are the insect equivalent of nightclubs where males and females meet and mate? Author Mike Allaby reveals more than 200 of nature's most unseemly creations in this sensational exposé. The sexual antics of plants are far more varied than those of people, and plants have preferences and techniques for which we have no equivalent. Being rooted to the spot, many rely on pollinators for assistance—and forget birds and bees, we're talking kangaroos, giraffes, and vampire bats. Botanical illustrations throw light on the gallery of pimps, hookers, and gigolos who may be lurking in your back garden and spice up this compendium of scurrilous botany which—be warned—may shock the worldliest of gardeners.
Scotland Y twig
Scotland Y twig
nationalism will not save the world
- bio: John Michael Allaby (1933).
- John Michael Allaby is an Aventis Junior prize-winning author. He was born on 18 September 1933 in Belper, Derbyshire in England. He was a police cadet from 1949 to 1951. After that he served in the RAF from 1951 to 1954, becoming a pilot. After leaving the RAF, he worked as an actor from 1954 to 1964, including "The Keys of Marinus" Doctor Who storyline.[1] He married Marthe McGregor on 3 January 1957. From 1964 to 1972, he a worked as an editor for the Soil Association in Suffolk, England, editing Span magazine from 1967 to 1972. He was a member of the board of directors for Ecosystems Ltd. in Wadebridge, Cornwall, England and was an associate editor of Ecologist from 1970 to 1972. He became a managing editor in 1972. In 1973, he became a freelance writer. He has written widely about science, particularly about ecology and weather. He edits and writes dictionaries and encyclopaedias for Macmillan Publishers and Oxford University Press. He co-authored James Lovelock's first two books: The Greening of Mars (1984, Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-32967-3) and Great Extinction (1983, Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-18011-X).[2] His book, The Food Chain (André Deutsch, ISBN 0-233-97681-7) was runner-up for the Times Educational Supplement Information Book Award in 1984. The New York Public Library chose Dangerous Weather: Hurricanes as one of its books for the teenage in 1998. He won the Aventis Junior Prize for Science Books in 2001 for How the Weather Works. He is a member of the Society for the History of Natural History, the Planetary Society, the Society of Authors, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Association of British Science Writers.
- e-mail: m.allaby@btinternet.com