Plant Galls by Redfern, Margaret - 2011

London: Collins, 2011. First edition. Well illustrated, large octavo, pp xii, 562, very clean internally,green cloth in excellent condition, the dustwrapper is nicely protected in a removable clear cover. [Most naturalists have come across oak apples, robin's pincushions, marble galls and witches' brooms, a few of the more familiar examples of the strange growths that are plant galls. They are beautiful, often bizarre and colourful, and amazingly diverse in structure and in the organisms that cause them. They have been known since ancient times and have attracted superstitions and folk customs. Both the ancient Greeks and Chinese used them in herbal medicine, and until well into the nineteenth century, they had a variety of commercial uses: important for dyeing cloth, tanning leather and for making ink. Margaret Redfern explores these fascinating complexities and provides much needed insight into the variety of galls of different types caused by a wide variety of organisms including fungi, insects and mites. She discusses the ecology of galls and focuses on communities of organisms within galls, the evolution and distribution of galls, as well as human and historical perspectives.]. First Edition. Cloth. Very Good/Very Good.