208 pages | © 2018

Paper List Price $23.00 | ISBN: 9780226574899 | 2018

“The sex life of an avocado might seem anything but lurid. Geneticist Ellstrand, however, reveals it as a riot of romantic yearning and ‘sex switching.’ In his foray into the nexus of food, science, and plant reproduction, we enter that alternative universe in which olives and quinces are really vehicles for seeds, the tomato (the ‘love apple’ of yore) is self-fertile, and cultivated bananas are female-sterile. You’ll become reacquainted with the pistil, and wonder at the sugar beet’s rise ‘from a cascade of geopolitical incidents.’ Nutrition might never seem the same again.” —  Nature