In this provocative reimagining of what it is to be a plant, an evolutionary biologist draws on a lifetime of research to offer a 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: carbon dioxide, a shower of rain, a heap of dung, and some sunlight. The air we breathe is cleaned by leaves. Everything we eat that comes from the land began as a leaf. More water is transpired through leaves than flows through all the streams and rivers on Earth.

Rendering complex concepts of plant biology into engaging and accessible prose, Jonathan Silvertown revels in the evolutionary success of these magicians of the natural world. If leaves are so vital to plant life, why did land plants have none at all 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 leaves grow, the ways they protect themselves against invaders, and the reasons they take such diverse shapes, sizes, and color.

By reframing the leaf as a solar panel, rainmaker, lunch box, chemistry set, shapeshifter, soil maker, geometric designer, and more, Nature’s Magicians reveals just how essential leaves are to life on this planet—and reminds us that nature’s smallest components often contain its greatest wonders.