I always buy and read books by Lee So-young, the botanical illustrator, as if collecting them. I love the author’s straightforward writing, and I learn about plants while enjoying botanical illustrations that are just as unpretentious as the prose yet full of the author’s passion. I’m always satisfied, and this book is even better because it helps me recognize narrow-minded ideas and misconceptions about plants. 😃

I bought this because I already like the author. The book arrived a little dented, but exchanging it seemed like a hassle, so I’ll just keep it. I had read the author’s previous book at the library and as an e-book, but the illustrations are so beautiful that I think the print edition is better.

📒 Misconceptions About Plants explores questions that might suddenly occur while walking, such as why cherry blossoms bloom only in spring and whether fig trees really do not flower, through detailed stories. The author, Lee So-young, is a botanical illustrator and horticultural researcher who has observed plants and recorded them in writing and detailed illustrations for more than 16 years. It turns out this is already her fifth book about plants, following A Walk Among Plants, Plants and Me,

Some books seem fragrant just by sitting quietly beside you. Books about nature are a prime example, especially when paired with beautiful illustrations or photographs; they become the kind you want to keep for a lifetime. In that regard, books by Lee So-young, a horticultural researcher and botanical illustrator, are at the top of my list. The author’s new book is Misconceptions About Plants. The author says that over 16 years of documenting plants, they have repeatedly encountered

Could it be because the author, a botanical illustrator and horticultural researcher, has spent 16 years looking closely at plants? She kindly explains how we should approach them, and I enjoyed feeling her affection for them. I felt as if I had become a child who knew nothing and was listening to a nature guide tell entertaining stories about the plant world. The precise botanical illustrations added a different feeling from looking at photographs. It was almost as if I could smell fragrant

This is a new book by Lee So-young, a botanical illustrator and horticultural researcher whose earlier works include A Walk Among Plants and The Book of Plants. It gathers the large and small misconceptions and prejudices about plants she encountered during 16 years of observing and recording them. Because plants are rooted in the ground, they cannot move by themselves. People therefore sometimes do not think of them as living things. But if you take even a little interest in plants, you learn

It had been a while since I read a book, but this one was light, informative, and easy to get through. Above all, the paper feels so much nicer than what I remember that I keep wanting to turn the pages. It’s somehow soft and slightly coated? Books used to give me paper cuts, but this one feels wonderful. This is a little unrelated to the content, but I was very pleased with that too.

Whenever author Lee So-young publishes a book, I read it with curiosity about which plants the author will introduce through botanical illustrations this time. I envy the author’s talent for detailed botanical drawing. “Drawing the life of a plant is like following the time of a plant” (p. 149). When I read the title of this new book, I wondered what misconceptions the author had about plants. As I studied plants, I remembered things I had learned I was mistaken about. “The plants are the ones

Plants that make sounds when stressed, defend themselves in many ways against threats to life, or change through hybridization and environmental shifts—plants of every kind live with their own stories. Author Lee So-young observes plants and records what the author finds, while also capturing their distinctive features in her illustrations. I get the sense that the author approaches plants with genuine love, not simply as a job. In particular, Chapter 4, “Living with Plants,” expresses a