Over 90 percent of all visible living matter is plant life. Plants clean the air, provide food, fuel, and fiber, and yield vital pharmaceuticals. In a book talk at Mann Library in October 2012, Karl J. Niklas, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, discusses his new book “Plant Physics.”  Emerging from long-term collaboration between plant evolutionary biologist Niklas and physicist Hanns-Christof Spatz,  the book explains how plants cannot be fully understood without grasping how physical forces and processes influence growth, development, reproduction, evolution, and the environment.  As a unique contribution in the field of biomechanics, the book provides a valuable reference for researchers interested in how plants work from a physical perspective.