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I had a dream this morning that the feed store in town was selling these adorable little plants that had skull shaped seed pods for super cheap because they had too many and I cannot tell you how DEVASTATED I am that I can't drive into town and buy one right now

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Flora and Sylva

Parallel Botany by Leo Lionni, translated from Italian by Patrick Creagh, was published in this first American edition by Knopf in 1977. Lionni is primarily known for his children’s books, but Parallel Botany is one of his few books for an adult audience. Parallel Botany is a field guide to imaginary plants, which Lionni presents with the authority of an scholarly textbook filled with references to things in the actual world, giving it an aura of believability. It has been compared to other literary flights of fabricated fancy, such as Luigi Serafini’s The Codex Seraphinianus (1981) and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (1972).

Lionni describes the Tirillus silvador of the high Andes which emits a shrill whistle on clear nights in January and February. There are the Woodland Tweezers that live in the shade of Manengo trees in the jungles of Indonesia, the growth pattern of which the Japanese parallel botanist Uchigaki noticed bares an unsettling resemblance to a winning layout in a game of Go. And of course there’s the Artesia whose various forms anticipate the work of such artists as Jean Arp and Alexander Calder, and, some believe, the work of all artists, including those yet to be born. In this age of alternative facts, Parallel Botany may have greater relevance today than it did when it was originally published. To paraphrase Borges, in order for something to be true, it simply has to exist.

This book exists, so we believe it is true.

View more posts from our Flora and Sylva series.

#Flora and Sylva #Leo Lionni #Parallel Botany #Imaginary #Imaginary Plants #patrick creagh