Seeds: Time Capsules of Life
- Rob Kesseler &
- Wolfgang Stuppy
Whether clinging to a sock, surfing the breeze or sliding through an animal's gut, seeds have been beautifully designed by evolution for dispersal. They first appeared 360 million years ago and have helped plants colonize much of Earth's surface. True time capsules of life, seeds may travel thousands of miles and wait for many years until they encounter the right conditions for germination.
In Seeds: Time Capsules of Life (Papadakis, £35/Firefly, $60), artist Rob Kesseler and seed morphologist Wolfgang Stuppy, both of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, present a natural history of seeds, showcasing their specialized architecture in stunning close-up photographs and scanning electron micrographs. The walls of the 'balloon' seed of the yellow paintbrush (Castilleja flava) shown here have dissolved, leaving a honeycombed cage ready to ride the wind.
B.K.
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Blowin' in the wind. Nature 443, 31 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/443031a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/443031a
