Carlos Magdalena

From the world's tiniest waterlily to the 'Coral Tree', Carlos Magdalena has an uncanny ability to bring rare, breathtakingly beautiful plants back from the brink of extinction. As a botanical horticulturist at London's famous Kew Gardens - the most biodiverse place on the planet - he has over 7,000 species under his care in his 'Noah's Ark' plant nursery. He is famous for his pioneering work with waterlilies, battling to save rare specimens against ecological destruction and thieves hunting them for wealthy collectors. Carlos travels to remote and dangerous locations - from the jungles of Mauritius to the most remote areas of the Australian outback - and develops ground-breaking, left-field techniques to encourage plants to propagate. Here are his stories of these incredible plants and a lifetime spent racing to save them.

Adventures in Search of the World's Rarest Species

The Plant Messiah

adventures in search of the world's rarest species

The plant messiah

O Messias das Plantas

Carlos Magdalena is a man on a mission: to save the world’s most endangered plants. In The Plant Messiah, Magdalena takes readers from the forests of Peru to deep within the Australian outback in search of the rare and the vulnerable. Back in the lab—at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, home of the largest botanical collection in the world—we watch as he develops groundbreaking, left-field techniques for rescuing species from extinction, encouraging them to propagate and thrive once again. Passionate and absorbing, The Plant Messiah is a tribute to the diversity of life on our planet, and to the importance of preserving it.

Il messia delle piante. Alla ricerca delle specie più rare del mondo

Carlos Magdalena of Kew Gardens is not your average botanical horticulturist. He's a man on a mission to save the world's most endangered plants from destruction and thieves hunting for wealthy collectors. He is a plant messiah. From the planet's tiniest waterlily - the Nymphaea thermarum - to Huarango trees with roots over 50 metres long, Carlos has a miraculous ability to bring breathtakingly beautiful plants back from the brink of extinction. He has travelled to the most remote and dangerous parts of the world - from the mountains of Peru to isolated Indian Ocean islands to the deepest Australian outback - in search of the rarest exotic species. Then, back in the Tropical Nursery at Kew, he uses pioneering, left-field techniques to help them grow. Now he's here to spread the gospel. The Plant Messiah is the inspirational story of a man who has devoted - and risked - his life to save incredible species, all in the name of making this Earth a greener and happier place. Amen to that.

Carlos Magdalena

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