Silk floss tree
With their fat, thorny trunks and branches, tropical-looking foliage, and exotic, hibiscus-like flowers, the floss-silk trees are among the most distinctive ornamental trees for regions where frosts are not severe.
Scent of the Vanishing Flora
Inspired by Dougal Stermer's book Vanishing Flora, Roman Kaiser worked for more than ten years on collecting the scent of 267 endangered plant species worldwide. In the present volume, he invites us to a journey along the hotspots of biodiversity, all of them bearing endangered species, and discusses their scents.
Silphium
Silphium was a plant that was used in classical antiquity as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant.
Strahov Monastery
The Strahov Monastery is the oldest Premonstratensian monastery in Bohemia and one of the most important architectural landmarks in the Czech Republic.
Helene Schjerfbeck
Helena Sofia Schjerfbeck was a Finnish painter. A modernist painter, she is known for her realist works and self-portraits, and also for her landscapes and still lifes.
Serge Mouille
Serge Mouille was a French industrial designer and goldsmith. He is best known for his light fixture designs.
Osbert Sitwell
Osbert Sitwell was a man whose pride in his aristocratic ancestry coexisted uneasily with his conviction that the artist was the sole truly superior being. Only in his autobiography, where his background and upbringing were triumphantly transmuted into art, did these two ill-suited elements achieve complete reconciliation.
María Sabina
María Sabina was the first contemporary Mexican curandera, defined as a native shaman, to allow Westerners to participate in the healing vigil that became known as the velada, where all participants partake of the psilocybe mushroom as a sacrament to open the gates of the mind. Sabina cultivated relationships with several of them, including Wasson, who became something of a friend. It is a matter of record, that many important 60s celebrities visited María Sabina, including rock stars such as Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Barbara Skelton
Barbara Skelton was a writer and literary femme fatale. She had many lovers and three husbands. She wrote two novels, a volume of short stories and two brilliant autobiographies.
Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark was a Scottish novelist.