From bog moss to orchids – the thrilling history of plant evolution
On the night of 1 March 1943, RAF Bomber Command launched its heaviest raid of the war so far. More than 300 planes dropped 660 tons of bombs on Berlin. Precise targeting was impossible and the aircraft hit the south-west of the city, including the botanical gardens and museum. Incinerated that night were three-and-a-half million dried plant specimens: ‘a catastrophe of major proportions to world botany,’ lamented Science magazine. The devastating fire at the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Museum provides the arresting opening to Ben Dark’s Green Kingdom. Dark’s first book, The Grove, was a charming wander through ‘19½ front gardens’ on a single street in Camberwell.
