Vicious Veg

Here we go again. By leading with picturesquely 'horrible' facts about plants, Arnold gradually introduces us to what it is to be one and to the place of the plant in the planet. So - plants eat horrible things like cow muck and dead flies, do horrible things like smell dreadful and poison people, compete viciously with each other for light, space and food, die and turn into coal and compost, and when you eat them, as the whole planet does, one way or another, they make you fart (but then doesn't everything?). There can be many more horrible fates for a tree than to end up as this frolicsome folio, for as the text concludes with its dying breath, 'Where would we be without plants?' My dad was right when he said 'All that meat and no potatoes makes Jack a dull boy.' He would have enjoyed this one. I did.