Science Is Beautiful: Botanical Life Under The Microscope, by Colin Salter

In some ways, a book like this almost manages to write itself. Indeed, the writing in this book is pretty limited, as most of the effort in this book is related to the images. But the images are a worthwhile star of the show, and it is little surprise that this book is apparently the third volume in a series of life under the microscope. It is worth considering, though, what botanical life means, as this book views botanical life in a rather broad sense. Some of these aspects seem obvious enough–flowering plants, fruits and vegetables, ferns, and trees and the like are all pretty obvious examples of botanical life. Still other forms, like mushrooms and fungal spores and green slimes (which appear to be a separate order of life from fungi, though which kingdom they are categorized in is not made clear) are not as obviously botanical in nature. Still, as far as the photos of this book are concerned, they are generally of a high quality and generally beautiful as well, so if you like the cover of this book, the odds are pretty good that you will like the rest of the book as well.

That does not mean that this book is perfect, though. Despite my fondness for the pictures and even my appreciation for the limited explanatory text that is provided for the pictures that are to be found in this book, there is something about this book that bothers me a little, and that is the way that many of the pictures in this book are color-enhanced. On the one hand, it is easy enough to see why the photos could use such enhancement. The colors in many plants may not pop the way that the author would like people to see. Large amounts of clear color are not as good at showing contrast, and so this book is colored with profusions of green, blue, yellow, red, and orange, for example, where such colors in real life are not nearly as close to as vibrant. One wonders if this was an issue in the other two volumes, but I do not know where those are and where I could easily check them out, so that mystery at least must wait for another day. In addition, there are occasions where the text that is written to support the picture is incomplete, so that one does not know the level of magnification all cases, which is a shame.

In terms of its contents, this book is a bit less than 200 pages long, nearly every page full of gorgeous botanical life, most of it plants. Admittedly, the organization of the book is a bit haphazard, even though there are chapters, which sometimes overlap in terms of their contents. After a short introduction, the book is divided into chapters that look at seeds, pollen, fruiting bodies (here is where the author talks mostly about fungi), trees and leaves, flowers, vegetables, and fruits. At times, the author is at pains to point out that a strawberry is not technically a berry, and that what it is is a surprisingly vexed question. The book contains information about each of the plant specimens on either its own page or a neighboring page, and this includes the sort of microscope that was used to see the plant as well as the magnification. There are also text notes for many of the pictures in question, and they serve as a way for the author to show off the difference between monocots and dicots, and also the uses and nature of many obscure forms of life, including the Roman Empire’s form of mild celery, the eggplant, as well as various related forms of Germaniums. The book then ends with an index and picture credits.