Centennial History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Volume 4: The Department of Plant Biology. 2013. illus. 294 p. gr8vo. Paper bd.

From humble beginnings as a small desert laboratory in Tucson, Arizona,at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Carnegie Institution'sDepartment of Plant Biology has evolved into a thriving internationalcenter of plant molecular biology that sits today on the campus ofStanford University. In the last hundred years it has witnessed immensechanges in biological thinking, and been at the forefront of innovativeresearch. This fourth in a series of five histories of the CarnegieInstitution touches on the tangled beginnings of ecology, the baroquecomplexities of photosynthesis, the great mid-century evolutionarysynthesis and the adventurous start of the plant molecular revolution.