From Library Journal
Horticultural books devoted to showy flowers usually fall into two categories: lush pictorials with insubstantial text and practical guides with illustrations that only inadequately capture the sensuous beauty of their subjects. This book by photographer Baker and tulip-grower Lemmers is, however, a rare exception. This work contains more than 300 exquisite photographs of tulip species, cultivars, and hybrids. Much like 18th-century botanical illustrations, each photographic portrait depicts an individual tulip (shown in many cases as a whole plant--flower, leaf, and bulb) set against an austere white background. The photographs are complemented by Lemmers's exhaustive descriptive catalog of 500 tulips and his personal account of the history of the tulip industry, itself a substantial contribution to the chronicles of modern floriculture. Highly recommended for all public libraries and academic libraries with horticultural collections.
-Brian Lym, City Coll. Lib. of San Francisco Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From the Inside Flap
Inspired by seventeenth and eighteenth-century botanical engravings, photographer Christopher Baker set out to revisit the beauty and detail of these drawings in a different medium. With camera in tow, he spent eight months in the bulb fields of Holland, photographing the most outstanding cultivated and species tulips. Working with renowned bulb expert and grower Willem Lemmers, who hand-picked and approved every tulip photographed, Christopher Baker was able to capture each flower at the peak of its perfection.
The result is an art book with a mission: Exquisite to look at, Tulipa, is also the ultimate authority on cultivated and species tulips. Mr. Lemmers, a third-generation bulb grower, tells the stories behind five hundred tulips: their parentage and origins, and the growers who bred them. Each tulip profile includes the tulip's registered name and synonyms, a description of its characteristics, and its suitability for the garden and for forcing. Mr. Lemmers also provides a definitive and up-to-date explanation of the most recent classification of tulips, as well as a look at the classification system's fascination four-hundred-year history.
The volume contains more than three hundred photographs organized by growing season from early- to late-flowering. Chosen for their importance as superb specimens of the tulip's form and characteristics, these portraits show the diversity, range, and sublime charms of the flower that has obsessed nations. This exploration of the magical, sensuous, awe-inspiring tulip is a must-have for collectors, gardeners, armchair enthusiasts, and art lovers alike.
