{"product_id":"9780241632628-pathless-forest","title":"Pathless Forest","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Quest to Save the World’s Largest Flowers\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe incredible story of one man's obsession to find and protect the world's largest flowers  \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a child, Chris Thorogood dreamed of seeing \u003ci\u003eRafflesia \u003c\/i\u003e- the plant with the world's largest flowers. He crafted life-size replicas in an abandoned cemetery, carefully bringing them to life with paper and paint. Today he is a botanist at the University of Oxford's Botanic Garden and has dedicated his life to studying the biology of such extraordinary plants, working alongside botanists and foresters in Southeast Asia to document these huge, mysterious blooms.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePathless Forest\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of his journey to study and protect this remarkable plant - a biological enigma, still little understood, which invades vines as a leafless parasite and steals its food from them. We join him on a mind-bending adventure, as he faces a seemingly impenetrable barrier of weird, wonderful and sometimes fearsome flora; finds himself smacking off leeches, hanging off vines, wading through rivers; and following indigenous tribes into remote, untrodden rainforests in search of Rafflesia's ghostly, foul-smelling blooms, more than a metre across.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe depend on plants for our very existence, but two in five of the world's species are threatened with extinction - nobody knows how many species of \u003ci\u003eRafflesia\u003c\/i\u003e might already have disappeared through deforestation.\u003ci\u003e Pathless Forest \u003c\/i\u003eis part thrilling adventure story and part an inspirational call to action to safeguard a fast-disappearing wilderness. To view plants in a different way, as vital for our own future as for that of the planet we share. And to see if \u003ci\u003eRafflesia \u003c\/i\u003eitself can be saved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41532852994145,"sku":"9780241632628","price":22.02,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_32344329.jpg?v=1737186937","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780241632628-pathless-forest","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}