Plants not only make our lives possible but meaningful. So why do we think so little of their everyday presence?

Since childhood, Cynthia Fan has been obsessed with plants, scientifically studying, artistically arranging and being continually surprised by their quirks and nature.

In this, her first book, Fan ponders profound questions about plant life – What exactly is a leaf? How does a plant think? – by reflecting on her own, as well the world around her. Whether in the South Africa of her birth, the China of her parents, or the blustery Britain in which she works today, Fan delights in the complex beauty of what she finds.

Accompanied by her own photos and sculptural arrangements, Fan discovers plants and people in a constant dance of deception and adaptation, inviting her readers to marvel at the fluidity of biology, the supremacy of serendipity, and the porous boundaries between self and environment.