In Gods and Green Fingers discover how myths emerged from a profusion of simple plants and how we can cultivate these plants today. This anthology for plant lovers combines fact with fiction. Insights into plants, from familiar flowers to trees, climbers and curiosities - are interspersed with short stories of perturbing perspective. What happens to someone, for instance, trapped in a maze? What is the power of a peacock's feather in a garden where wishes are granted, on condition the feather is returned? And are there really fairies in the flower border?
The mythology of plants is particularly powerful. Heracles, for instance inspired one about the hellebore, when he deceived his wife Deianeira, who took malicious revenge on him. The sacred oak of Dodona still seems to house the spirit of Zeus and even the humble crocus appears; mysterious yet persistent in Minoan art.