The strange, amazing stories behind six everyday plants

Did you know that tomatoes respond to a high C note? Or that the prickly pear made red fabric popular, and yams helped create the contraceptive pill? Often beautiful, sometimes deadly, but constantly ingenious, plants are the sources of life and delight, myth and mayhem.Their worlds are intricately entwined with our own history, culture and folklore. Some have a troubling past, while others have ignited human creativity or enabled whole civilisations to flourish. Continue reading...