The big. Supersize leaf: Bolivian water lily ; Fan-tastic and gigantic: Traveler's palm ; A long way up: Giant sequoia -- The bad. In the dead of the night: Deadly nightshade ; Plant with a bang: Sandbox tree -- Root cause...of death: White snakeroot -- The smelly. Stop and smell the ginkgo: Ginkgo ; A pain in the nose: Eastern skunk cabbage ; Of corpse it smells bad: dead horse arum -- The exceptionally strange. Come a little closer: Venus fly trap ; A stone...or plant?: Living stones -- If it looks like a duck...: Flying-duck orchid

"Ready to meet some far-out flora? Leaf through this book and you'll unearth some of the amazing adaptations that help plants thrive: Seeds that explode. Leaves that look like stones. Berries so deadly that swallowing just a few will stop your heart. A plant that eats meat, and another that pretends to be meat--rotten meat, with a smell so rank you'll want to plug your nose. Dig in to the science of plant survival in a botanical book blooming with lush illustrations and filled with engagingly narrated, fascinating facts about how plants flourish, even in the most extreme environments on earth. A glossary, source notes, index, and select bibliography round out the back matter for readers eager to know more"--