"At the dawn of a new century, in a characteristic Philadelphia winter, Alma Whittaker is born. His father, Henry Whittaker, is a bold and charismatic botanical explorer whose vast fortune conceals humble origins: he started out as a rascal in Sir JosephBanks' Kew Gardens and as a cabin boy aboard Captain Cook's Resolution. Alma's mother, a strict Dutchwoman from a good family, knows as much about botany as any man. An independent girl, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, Alma soon enters the worldof plants and science. However, as the close study of mosses brings her closer and closer to the mysteries of evolution, the man she loves pulls her in the opposite direction: into the world of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. She is a clear-minded scientist; He is a utopian artist. But what unites this couple is the shared passion for knowledge: the desperate desire to understand how the world works, what the mechanisms of life are made of"--
