The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (2013)

This is an intense book telling many stories. I had not read anything about this book before I started, just chose it based on the fact that I like the author - Elizabeth Gilbert.

First of all, it is a history of the study of botany book. It starts with Kew gardens in England, reminding me of a Philippa Gregory's Earthly Joys. Henry Whittaker is the son of a gardner, who gets caught stealing rare plants and selling them to others, so instead of being hung, he gets sent around the world to collect specimens for Kew. He ends up starting his own business and settles in Philadelphia. He takes a Dutch wife and they have one daughter - Alma.

Some scribbled notes - the book takes us to Tahiti to collect specimens, where the Tahitians think that plants grow in shapes to help humans. They also mentioned that Eurpeans brought illnesses that decimated the population from 200,000 to 8,000. Wikipedia explains that the first number was an overestimation, but that the population did drop to 16,000 and even to a low point of 6,000.

One more unfinished review. It is the books I really loved and wanted to do them justice that I sometimes don't get around to finishing. This was from early in the year, so I don't remember details, just that I learned a lot about how early botanists worked and the main character, I believe, was a woman botanist, though I could find no historical character that she was based on.