The trunk of this book is the unlikely marriage of two botanists, one in his 70s and the wife in her 30s. This raises the question of what binds people together. The answer is plants. Aven Nelson was one of the most distinguished botanists of the American West, doing major exploring at the end of the 19th century when the romantic Humboldtian natural history explorer tradition was still alive. But the relationship of Aven and Ruth is only the starting point for a book of ruminations on questions of larger bindings, most importantly what binds people to a place or to the Earth as a whole. The Nelsons were on the fringe of the academic world, but they had a much richer natural realm than the botanists headquartered in botanical capitals like Columbia University in New York City. Aven Nelson expressed his priorities as "the lives of men and women shall be fuller and richer because they have touched hands as it were wih a few of the lovable creations and creatures of the great uiverse." The author, Frieda Knobloch, a westerner herself, interweaves the Nelson's story with her own experiences and reflections on what binds her to the Nelsons and to the land. This book portrays science as very much an affair of the heart, of people obsessed with things they love, of imperfect people and institutions, but finally as something that has crucial things to teach the human race about living on Earth. The form of the book is very unusual, blending sections of letters, journals, biographical links, theory, and personal meditations. It's all great food for the imagination.

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