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Green Kingdom

The Family History of Plants

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Green Kingdom

Written by: Ben Dark
Narrated by: Ben Dark
Free with 30-day trial Free with 30-day trial

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About this listen

The epic story of the plant kingdom, showing its staggering variety and ingenuity over half a billion years.

‘An awesome book. Ben Dark is a master storyteller’ NIGEL SLATER

‘Utterly fascinating. I don't expect to read a better work of natural history this year’ BILL BRYSON

‘An absolute delight . . . not just a joy to read , it is the kind of book that makes you see differently . . . Book of the year, for me’ James McConnachie, Sunday Times

From the arrival of the first plants on land 484 million years ago to the globe-spanning diversity of flora we know today, Green Kingdom traces the evolution of plant life across eons and continents, reanimating the lost worlds that shaped its course and dramatically expanding our vision of what it means to be a plant.

Through the stories of sixteen plant families, from the humble bog moss to the exquisite adaptations of the orchid, we witness how plant life colonised land, pioneered leaves, recruited fungi, formed seeds, manipulated animals and ultimately came to dominate our planet. Some take us to unrecognisable Earths, buried under twelve thousand years of ice or hidden in the blackout of an asteroid winter, others to a defining event in the planet’s history, from volcanic chain eruptions and sudden glaciations to the gradual parting of continents.

Inhabiting the lives and minds of the adventurers, poets, philosophers and scientists who pieced this epic story together, Green Kingdom is both a hidden history of the Earth and a dynastic drama, as rich and unexpected as any story ever told.

'Incredible . . . There’s a wow fact on every page . . . dizzying, thrilling . . . Few nature books I’ve read expand the mind so lyrically and effortlessly as this guide to our miraculous green world' DAILY MAIL

‘A wonderful book by a writer of spectacular gifts’ NICOLA SHULMAN, author of Graven with Diamonds

© Ben Dark 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 Biological Sciences Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science
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Critic Reviews

Vividly and poetically, the author offers us an incredible, long-distance overview, as if he has a magic pair of prehistoric binoculars . . . There’s a wow fact on every page . . . dizzying, thrilling . . . Few nature books I’ve read expand the mind so lyrically and effortlessly as this guide to our miraculous green world
An absolute delight . . . Green Kingdom is not just a joy to read, it is the kind of book that makes you see differently . . . Book of the year, for me (James McConnachie)
What an awesome book. Illuminating, fascinating and superbly researched. Ben Dark is a master storyteller. I learned something on every page (NIGEL SLATER)
Utterly fascinating. I don't expect to read a better work of natural history this year (BILL BRYSON)
[Dark’s] book’s energetic cultural history and human entanglements . . . carry you through. He rises splendidly to the challenge of keeping a general reader well entertained
Dark writes with flair, wit and occasional lyricism . . . a sharp eye for the telling anecdote . . . beguiling . . . it is as a cultural historian that he really shines. The book is crammed with intriguing nuggets gathered from art, literature and history . . . You’ll find many such gems in Green Kingdom
Ben Dark is a fantastic writer: his ability to relate science through story is both brilliant and rare, and Green Kingdom – in its palatial scope, beautiful phrasing and companionable humanity – is an extraordinary example of his brimming talent and a hugely enjoyable read (MATT COLLINS, author of The Tree Atlas)
With this new odyssey of plant evolution, Ben Dark emerges as a natural history writer of spectacular gifts. He tacks with enviable deftness between the microscopic and the cosmically immense, between the backward chasm of the past and the friendly minutiae of modern life, between hard science and the flowerings of human artistry. He can make a history of mosses into an adventure story full of luck and danger, monsters and meteorites. His prose is both lucid and beautiful, and often witty. A wonderful book (NICOLA SHULMAN, author of Graven with Diamonds)
Magnificently researched, captivatingly written and philosophically meaty, Green Kingdom skilfully weaves together the wonder of botanical evolution with human history and folklore to create a profound yet joyfully entertaining read. Dammit, if I had written this, I would die happy (JONATHAN DRORI, author of Around the World in 80 Plants)
A book that traverses deep time and takes the reader on a wondrous journey through the kingdom of plants. Ben Dark engaged me every step of the way with his elegant mix of storytelling and science (SUE STUART SMITH, author of The Well Gardened Mind)
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