Chemistry of Plants and Insects

This fluently written book is illustrated by well-chosen colour photos and numerous chemical formulae as well as some tabulation of data such as one showing the composition of the synthetic medium used to feed pea aphids. This involves having a detailed knowledge of insects’ dietary needs, which are surprisingly complex. I found it interesting to read that the reason that pheromones have odd numbers of carbon atoms in each molecule is because of the mechanism by which insects synthesise them. After reading this book one comes away with the feeling that there is a lot more to be learned from this topic, particularly by those who would like to move away from using environmentally unfriendly sprays in favour of more targeted approaches.

Margareta Séquin has a PhD in organic chemistry, with emphasis on natural products, from the University of Basel, Switzerland. After postdoctoral work at Princeton University she has taught organic chemistry, natural products chemistry, and chemistry for non-majors at San Francisco State University for more than twenty years. She leads field seminars at botanical gardens and in nature preserves. As a plant enthusiast with great interest in the insect world as well she has been a docent at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Berkeley, California, for the last twenty years. Extensive travelling allows her to observe and photograph many natural habitats. Margareta Séquin is the author of the book “The Chemistry of Plants: Perfumes, Pigments, and Poisons”, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2012.