David G Haskell

Stunned and delighted that The New York Times has given How Flowers Made our World a wonderfully enthusiastic and generous review, penned by Adam Nicolson. Gift article: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/b...

Finally got a sniff of the flowers of the rare Franklinia alatamaha! Like a sweet rose when it opens. Matures to almond-bitter cherry with apple core overtones. Given the tea-family open bloom, the aroma perhaps evolved to appeal to a wide variety of pollinators like bumblebees and beetles.

This will devastate our research+innovation capacity, bedrock of the 21st century economy. 35% of *all* employed people in the US with STEM PhD degrees are both foreign-born *and* graduated from a US university. —> nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/292... Shutting them out is extremist folly.

A Labor Day reminder: having a job is no longer enough to protect millions of Americans from homelessness. For many workers, the greatest threat isn't losing their job. It's that their job will never pay enough, never provide enough hours, never offer enough stability to keep them housed.

Please join me at a live event! I'm looking forward to meeting readers and to sharing floral tales🌻 This is an updated and corrected schedule. I'll post times and registration links as I receive them on my website dghaskell.com.

«Blumen können betrügen, täuschen oder gar töten» – der Biologe David George Haskell über die wahren Heldinnen der Evolution. Interview by Carole Koch. www.nzz.ch/nzz-am-sonnt... @nzz.ch

The beauty and brokenness of gardening, aromatic discoveries, and the creativity of flowers... I join Marcus Smith in conversation on Constant Wonder 🌿 www.byuradio.org/c9c49328-b25...

The song, Plant People FTW, now streaming thanks to @martinebotany.bsky.social and his botanico-musical friends

In other words, when the regime attacks NGOs, the big donor-advised funds block donations even before the cases go to trial. This gives extremist politicians one more way to cause harm and to stifle freedom.

Grass! This weekend: live show with Radiolab. In The Glade, Little Island, Manhattan. With Molly Webster, Steven Wendt, Pilobus Dance Company, and me. (5pm on Aug 14th, 15th, 16th). Free, unticketed one-hour show. Come celebrate grass with us!

One for @dghaskell.bsky.social

Tonight!

Delighted to be in conservation about the marvels of flowers with @breezybrik.bsky.social in @sciam.bsky.social Listen: www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/epis... And online article: www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

For no particular reason, I've just read two books about plants that I recommend. How Flowers Made Our World by @dghaskell.bsky.social: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/775876... The Light Eaters by @zoeschlanger.bsky.social: www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

I'll be speaking this Thursday at 6pm @ Cambridge Public Library. Flowers as catalysts for life's diversity, creativity, and vitality! Please let your Cambridge/Boston friends know 🏵️ Free reg: cambridgepl.libcal.com/event/17160556

Jewelweed launch velocity varies from 0.2 to 4 m/s. Data from Hayashi, M, KL Feilich, and DJ Ellerby. "The mechanics of explosive seed dispersal in orange jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)." Journal of experimental botany 60, no. 7 (2009): 2045-2053. www.instagram.com/reel/DbEQs0G...

On the other hand, squash bees: www.instagram.com/p/Da74DoqRPCq/

Let's celebrate some flowers. Please join me at an upcoming event! Details and registration here: dghaskell.com/speaking/

As you enjoy your morning coffee, did you know that bees can be addicted to caffeine, too — the original “caffeine buzz”? (Excerpt is from @dghaskell.bsky.social’s excellent “How Flowers Made Our World”.)

The level of punnery in this thread is perfect for Fathers Day. I for one am conflicted as an anti-monarchist who wants to cheer on the valiant soldiers of the Protista Kingdom

France will be at the epicenter of the most significant heat anomaly on the planet over the next few days. The sheer extent of the country that could experience temperatures above 40°C is nothing short of astonishing.

For many flowers, aromas and visual signals are strongest when the flower is shedding pollen. So give the fathers in your life flowers this year 🌼 The symbolism of flowers belong to all.

Next, they'll shoot love darts at one another Lapidary snails (Helicigona lapicida) getting amorous in the rain, southern France For more on the endlessly fascinating and highly contorted subject of snail love, check out the excellent recent @radiolab.bsky.social episode on the subject 🐌❤️🏹

Appalling focus in this article on the "threats" to US corporate profiteering from cancer. How about the benefits to, you know, human beings with cancer? A reminder that patients are commodities in US. "China’s Rise in Drug Development Looms Over U.S." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/30/b...

Can we condemn the regime without making derogatory comments about the culture of rural America? The tsunami of comments/"jokes" about "white trash" and trailer parks feels like "deplorables 2.0". The problem is Trump, not that some folks, usually not urbane pundits, like to watch wrestling.

Nicotinotia, Magnolia, Robinia, Begonia ... so many plant names from 16-17th century French aristocrats, royal gardeners, diplomats, often people with little to no relationship with the actual living plants. My video over in Zuckerlandia: www.instagram.com/reel/DYzZIuG...

Just finished reading @dghaskell.bsky.social new book "How Flowers Made Our World." It's the best kind of book, a work of beauty that transforms perception. I now understand flowers as life-shaping beings filled with evolutionary wisdom, which humans respond to out of our own evolutionary wisdom.

Lovely morning in West Marin at Commonweal hearing @dghaskell.bsky.social speaking about not just the biology of flowers but how we understand ourselves through flowers. And got to catch a few minutes chat with @ssparks.bsky.social while I distracted him from doing his business!

Chelsea Flower Show -- the elephant in the room = toxic chemicals and biodiversity collapse www.instagram.com/reel/DYhZciA...

🎙️Combining scientific study with lived experience, @dghaskell.bsky.social's latest book, How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature's Revolutionaries, tells the story of the adaptability and cooperative nature of flowering plants. Listen here: www.wortfm.org/you-can-lear...

Friends near Bolinas, CA, please join us May 22. Also on zoom for all. tns.commonweal.org/events/

Loving this book -- highly recommended. It begins w a deep dive into magnolias, one of my favorite flowering trees.

Inside that spiky seed pod, elaiosomes attached to seeds. Ant snacks. The seed gets deposited in a nice underground ant compost heap. A great wildflower nursery. Working with ants in this way is called myrmecochory. A meadow of vocab. Glad to see one of my fav flowers leaping into the next gen