“It’s hard to choose among the riches Bernhardt offers as he weaves his way from grassland to city street, outback to backyard. At every stop, something is pollinating something. . . . Bernhardt’s style is a treat. . . . Read on into the green world of a fine botanist’s telling revelations.”
— New York Times Book Review
"Some of the strangest behavior in nature occurs in plants. Writing in a popular style, Bernhardt mingles fact and history with his own observations of plants gained during travels in the United States, South America, and Australia. His absorbing account . . . covers amazing conduct of both obscure and familiar plants, including seasonality and its consequences in a tropical cyclically dry forest; Australian mistletoe, whose leaves mimic those of the trees with which they have a parasitic relationship; the ecology of our North American grasslands; pollination by mammals, beetles, and moths; Amazonian giant water lilies; the eccentric life of the common violet; and five chapters on the strangest plants of all, the orchids."
— Library Journal