Books Reviews and the chance to win

THE FUTURE IS FUNGI Michael Lim and Yun Shu Thames & Hudson RRP: $49.99 Fungi, as anyone who attended Foundation & Friends' FUNGI x BOTANICA exhibition in 2021 will tell you, are spectacularly diverse, wonderfully complex, and largely a mystery to us. This beautifully produced book provides an entertaining introduction to a hidden kingdom that helps produce many staples of modern life, including wine, chocolate, detergent and penicillin, and is now being engineered to grow meat alternatives, create new medicines, produce sustainable biomaterials, and heal our environment. Authors Michael Lim and Yun Shu focus on fungi’s past, present and potential future impact in four key areas: food, medicine, psychedelics and mental health, and environmental remediation. In doing so, they reveal how fungi have not only formed the foundations of modern life, but how they may help shape our future. Lim, at age 21, cofounded one of Australia's largest eyewear chains and now dedicates his time to researching fungi, psychedelics, ecology and anthropology, while Shanghai-born researcher Yun Shu was exposed to the benefits of traditional Chinese medicine and fungi from a young age. FROM EARTH: CREATE YOUR OWN NATURAL APOTHECARY Charlotte Rasmussen Rockpool Publishing RRP $32.99 Most people are well aware that nature provides an endless source of products that benefit our health and wellbeing – from herbal teas to skincare oils and remedies for a broad spectrum of ailments. The problem is knowing which ingredients are safe and effective to use. From Earth provides an accessible and practical guide to creating your own home apothecary from scratch, with lists of the roots, flowers and herbs you need, and recipes detailing how they can be safely combined to create a variety of natural products, including soaps, skin moisturisers, decongestants, fragrances and shampoos. Author Charlotte Rasmussen grew up on a farm in Denmark with a mother who had an aversion to over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Moving to Australia she found it difficult to obtain the natural, organic skincare products and remedies she had used in Scandinavia, so in 2017, working from her kitchen, she successfully launched her own business, From Earth. She has since settled in Torquay, Victoria, from where From Earth now ships products across Australia and overseas. ADELAIDE HILLS GARDENS Christine McCabe Thames & Hudson RRP $45.00 Author Christine McCabe, a passionate gardener and one of Australia’s leading travel writers, takes readers on a tour of 20 extraordinary gardens in the Adelaide Hills – from the historic Carrick Hill, built around a ‘Jacobethan-style’ manor house, to Tickletank, which winds its way around a repurposed 50,000-gallon concrete water tank – all beautifully captured by photographer Simon Griffiths. Among the glorious gardens on display are those of ABC presenter Sophie Thomson, artist Morgan Allender, garden designer Steve Hailstone, and early landscape artist Hans Heysen. McCabe’s tour provides more than simply a glimpse of some enchanting spaces, it also explores the fascinating history of the region, which has attracted everyone from hard-living loggers to Adelaide’s elite, who built charming summerhouses to escape the heat of the plains. And it describes how the region’s many gardens have evolved and adapted, with an early attraction to English staples such as oak, elm and ash, giving way in modern times to climatecompatible plantings better able to cope with hotter and drier summers.

YOUR CHANCE TO WIN A BOOK Foundation & Friends has a few copies to give away of the books featured above. To be in the running to win, just email foundation.friends@botanicgardens.nsw.gov.au or write to Letters, Foundation & Friends, Cottage 6, Mrs Macquaries Rd, Sydney NSW 2000 by 15 September. Be sure to include your contact details and which book you would like to receive. In our Winter 2022 edition we gave members the chance to win A History of Australian Bird Art (Penny Olsen), Guide to Native Orchids of NSW and ACT (Lachlan M. Copeland, Gary N. Backhouse), and Nature Style: Cultivating Wellbeing at Home with Plants (Alana Langan, Jacqui Vidal). Congratulations to our winners Virginia Coote, Stan McDonald, Lyn Forbes, Christine Clancy and Susan Young.