In this provocative reimagining of what it is to be a plant, an evolutionary biologist draws on a lifetime of research to offer an original and beguiling behind-the-scenes perspective on how plants really work—and how we truly depend on leaves for our survival. For readers of Entangled Life and An Immense World.

Leaves are so familiar that they are easy to overlook. Yet it is through leaves that plants perform their magic—not least building towers of wood from the unlikeliest of raw materials: a rare gas, a shower of rain, a heap of dung, and some sunlight. Everything we eat that comes from the land began as a leaf. The air we breathe is cleaned by leaves. Many of the rainfall patterns of the earth depend on tree cover.

As evolutionary biologist Jonathan Silvertown shows in this eye-opening book, the most basic questions about leaves remain unasked and have surprising answers. With leaves so vital to plant life, why did land plants have none for the first 50 million years of their evolution? Today, there are easily more leaves on Earth than stars in our galaxy. What changed? Silvertown explains how they grow, the ways they protect themselves against invaders, and the reasons they take such diverse shapes, sizes, and color.

By looking at the leaf as a solar panel, a rainmaker, a lunch box, a chemistry set, a shapeshifter, a soil-maker, a geometric designer and more, Silvertown provides a behind-the-scenes look at the foliage that makes all of life possible.