ecology
Haunted by my great-grandfather’s second wife – by Alice Mah
An academic specialising in ecology, Mah traces her constant anxiety about the world to a ghostly Chinese forebear
What sea slugs can teach us about organ transplants
The ability of species of nudibranch to incorporate the cells of completely separate species could have profound implications for humanity, says Drew Harvell
The North American fruit tree that provides a model for economics
Bound in a web of connectivity, the serviceberry produces sufficient food for humans and other animals, and is an outstanding example of wealth consisting in ‘having enough to share’
Blooming marvellous: the year’s best gardening books
Subjects include Catesby’s Natural History, London’s lost green spaces, planting for colour in borders and the complexity of a garden’s ecology38
Between woods and water
Patrick Barkham pays tribute to the much-missed nature writer, whose core response to the call of the wild animated everything he did
The plunder of the seas
David Profumo wonders whether newly created marine reserves can really reverse decades of devastation
Be a self-sacrificing ant
One day the writer and artist James Bridle rented a hatchback, taped a smartphone to the steering wheel and installed…
Nature in the round
As the start date of COP26 draws closer, and just when we are assailed by daily proof of climate chaos,…
We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously
Let nobody tell you that the second decade of the 21st century has been a bad time. We are living…
![An English oak in a misty meadow at dawn [Getty]](https://new-dev.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/oak_tree.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
Why the British love the oak tree
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been planting up much of the pasture on our small Cornish farm with…
. . . and I won’t be Boris Mark II
Zac Goldsmith explains how he will sell himself to a city that’s now solidly Labour
Making hay …
This book is a portrait of one man’s meadow. Our now almost vanished meadowland, with its tapestry of wildflowers, abundant…
