Fruit

Edible, Inedible, Incredible

Wolfgang Stuppy & Rob Kesseler

Fruit explores the fascinating world of fruits through a unique presentation of extraordinary images from around the world accompanied by a lively explanatory text.

200 x 220 mm

264 pages

Hardback

ISBN: 978-1-906506-42-1

£20.00

Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2008: Special Award of the Jury

Subjects: Nature, Photography

Plants have developed manifold strategies and ruses for the dispersal of their seed. These are reflected in the many different colours, shapes and sizes of the fruits that contain and protect them. In this pioneering collaboration, visual artist Rob Kesseler and seed morphologist Wolfgang Stuppy use scanning electronmicroscopy to obtain astonishing images of a variety of fruits and the seeds they protect. Razor-sharp cross-sections reveal intricate interiors, nuts and other examples of botanical architecture and reproductive ingenuity. The black and white microscope images have been sumptuously coloured by Rob Kesseler highlighting the structure and functioning of the minuscule fruit and seeds some almost invisible to the naked eye and in so doing creating a work of art. Larger fruits, flowers and seeds have been especially photographed. The formation, development and demise of the fruits are described their vital role in the preservation of the biodiversity of our planet explained. Fruits are the keepers of the precious seeds that ensure our future; some are edible, others inedible and many, quite simply, incredible. Published in collaboration with Kew Royal Botanic Gardens.  

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Wolfgang Stuppy & Rob Kesseler

Wolfgang Stuppy is the Seed Morphologist at Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank based at Wakehurst Place in Sussex. At the heart of this large international project, which collects and stores seeds and fruits from all over the world, Dr. Stuppy has found the ideal environment to feed his passion for research into the astonishing diversity of seeds and fruits. A specialist in a rarely studied field, Dr. Stuppy teaches seed biology to university students and members of the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership within the UK and overseas. Visual artist Rob Kesseler is University of the Arts London Chair in Arts, Design & Science. His long career has often used plants as a source of inspiration. In 2001 he was appointed NESTA Fellow at Kew. Since then he has worked with microscopic plant material. He was 2010 Year of Bio-Diversity Fellow at the Gulbenkian Science Institute, Portugal. His work has been shown in museums and galleries in the UK, Europe and North America, including solo exhibitions at The Victoria & Albert Museum, Kew Gardens and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. He is a fellow of the Linnean Society and Royal Society of Arts.

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"Reveals the ingenious and often devious strategies which plants have developed to help ensure their continued existence"
BBC

"One of my favourite non-fiction books of all time"
About.com

"Breathtaking [...] I was totally hooked from the very first page"
Lab Times

"A fascinating and beautifully photographed global journey among the strange and exotic"
ScienceBase

"Truly spectacular"
Wildlife Extra

"Spiced with stories and accompanied by awesome pictures"
Edinburgh Journal of Botany