Review of Nichola K. Menzies’ Ordering the Myriad Things: From Traditional Knowledge to Scientific Botany in China

Our collective wonder of plants is as old as human history. For centuries, and to this day, we continue to marvel at their beauty and bounty. The study, identification, naming, collection, cultivation, use, and trade of plants have inspired the progress of civilization: from the fertile valleys of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and the agri- cultural revolution, Plato's heavenly plane tree (Platanus orientalis) and the essence of humanity, Guy de La Brosses Jardin du Roi and its botanical cures, the quest for spices and the course of world history, Gregor Mendel and modern genetics, Louise Glück's "Wild Iris" and the universal quality of her poetry (1993), to Daniel Chamov- itz's lives of plants (2012)-these are only some of the varied examples that highlight
the entwined histories of plants and humankind across time and space.