Heiser
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Charles Heiser’s book, Weeds in My Garden: Observations on Some Misunderstood Plants, has won the 2004 Garden Globe Award for Best Talent from the Garden Writers Association. A Distinguished Professor emeritus of botany at IUB, his first work focused on sunflowers (Helianthus), a genus that includes several cultivated plants as well as a large number of wild species some would call weeds.
Through those studies, he first became interested in natural hybridization, its evolutionary significance and the origin of domesticated plants. Then he was led to consideration of the origin of agriculture. He also is an authority on a number of other plants—mostly ones of economic importance—such as chili peppers, naranjillas, various gourds and the totora. In recent years, much of his research has been involved with plant breeding.
But this book is about the dandelion, the pokeberry and other misunderstood plants that seem to flourish wherever they are less than welcome. Home Pages reviewed his book last May; go to this archival Web site:
http://www.homepages.indiana.edu/053003/text/lions.html
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