Originally published in 1939 and still in print, Flowering Earth traces the evolution of plant life from the appearance of the earliest microorganisms to the rise of the modern floras, adroitly interweaving natural history, biography, and philosophical reflection en route. Mark Van Doren placed Donald Culross Peattie (1898–1964) as a nature writer in the ranks of Gilbert White, Henry David Thoreau, John Burroughs, W. H. Hudson, Richard Jeffries, and John Muir. The Indiana University Press edition features a new foreword by Charles B.