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The Botanical Garden, Vol. 1: Trees and Shrubs Hardcover – September 7, 2002
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Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix are pioneers in the use of photography in plant illustration. The Botanical Garden I and II, are exciting and thoroughly modern renditions of illustrated botany books. Ten years in the making, this set combines the finest in photography with up-to-date, expert commentary to bridge the gap between gardener-friendly books and scientific texts. In the tradition of the great botanical illustrations, each featured plant has been carefully photographed -- as a whole and in its parts -- against a white background to reveal the plant's physical characteristics in exacting detail.
Plants from more than 1,200 distinct groups are described -- from oaks to violets and water lilies to grasses -- and are presented in evolutionary order, from the most primitive to the most advanced. Each plant listing includes:
- Name: genus, species and common names, date of discovery, and range.
- Description: detailed and concise in the scientific style.
- Key Recognition Features.
- Ecology and Geography.
- Comment: cultivation needs plus notes about unusual hybrids or developments in the genus.
As a pair, the two volumes are an all-inclusive source of information and photographs of more than 2,000 genera of temperate plants. Thorough introductory text encompasses numerous themes in botany, from the history of plant development to current DNA studies that are revolutionizing plant classification. Each volume includes a detailed index and bibliography.
The Botanical Garden I and II are exciting additions to a gardening bookshelf. They are visually rich and highly accurate references that will remain interesting, useful and current for many years. Offering a discerning insight into the relationship between garden plants and their natural environments and accuracy that is unequalled outside scientific circles, this duo are truly the modern heirs to a long history of botanical references. There are simply no other works of this kind available today.
About Volume I, Trees and Shrubs
Featuring 510 genera of temperate woody garden plants with full details of how they are related, their origins and uses, Volume I covers trees, shrubs and climbers. From plants dating to prehistory -- tree ferns, gingkoes and some conifers - to those more recently evolved, this volume includes early- flowering plants (magnolia and its family), catkin-bearing trees, fruit and nut trees, maples, the cordyline, palm and bamboo species, and many more advanced trees and shrubs.
- Print length492 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFirefly Books
- Publication dateSeptember 7, 2002
- Dimensions9 x 1.5 x 11.25 inches
- ISBN-101552975916
- ISBN-13978-1552975916
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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove P.L., IL
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Examples of elegantly arranged illustrations are found under Albizia, Mahonia, and Yucca in volume 1 and under Acanthus, Dryopteris, and Molucella in volume 2. The accompanying plant data are, as the authors state, definitive and full of exacting details (e.g., the names and dates of botanists who located and classified individual flowers, ferns, herbs, bamboos, and evergreens). What is lacking in each entry and particularly in the index is the human touch. The authors ignore common names for many plants (the only way to find lilac is to know that its scientific name is Syringa) and avoid reference to plant uses in cooking, aromatherapy, and healing, thus confining the value of the set to college and university libraries. Whereas the botanist and grower will be overjoyed to find so brilliant a display of entries and plant photos, the high-school student, librarian, greenhouse manager, and ordinary gardener is more likely to experience frustration. Recommended for large botany collections. RBB
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Spectacular... sumptuous color photographs of flowers, leaves, fruits, and seeds... accompanied by Rix's succinct text. (Allyson M. Hatward Journal of the New England Garden History Society)
Spectacular hybrid of gardening and science ... Two green thumbs up on these books. (Cleveland Plain Dealer 2002-08-29)
Never have more beautiful plant identification books been produced. (gardenclub.org/book_reviews 2002-09-08)
I expect to turn to these volumes often when I want background information, as well as beautiful photos, of nearly any plant I might ever wonder about. (Valerie Easton Seattle Times 2002-09-08)
Excellent colored studio illustrations of about 1,000 genera ... These volumes will interest horticulturists and botanists alike. All levels. (G.P. DeWolf Jr. Choice)
Most compelling are the spectacular, close-up color photographs that exquisitely detail every plant part. (Sue O'Brien Library Journal 2002-10-15)
What sets them apart, however, are the photographs -- crisp, colorful and close up, so you clearly can see the tiny details that can be so important for plant identification. (Knight Ridder News Service 2002-08-20)
These are not trivial coffee-table books. (Stuart Robertson Montreal Gazette 2002-12-07)
Sheds new light, thanks to DNA studies, on the unwieldy and constantly changing world of plant classification ... These books are pure pleasure, so you can absorb as much or as little of the science as you please. (Anne Raver New York Times 2002-09-29)
It is like having the Chelsea Order Garden in your bookshelf, and for purposes of identification, and the study of similarities and differences in closely related plants, it is invaluable. (Dick Raub The Botanical Artist)
Rix and Phillips intend their book for gardeners, not just botanists, however. This is evident in Phillips's open design and his splendid full-color detail photographs make these books a true feast for the eyes. (Lori Kranz American Reference Books Annual, Volume 35)
Destined to become standard reference work ... a classy work with a timeless focus. (Steve Whysall Southam News 2002-10-11)
A spectacular hybrid of gardening book and scientific text. (David Hobson Kitchener-Waterloo Record 2002-11-16)
These two volumes are an all-inclusive source of information for the temperate zone. (Ken Smith London Free Press 2002-11-30)
Unique in the gardening library. (Jodi Delong Halifax Herald 2002-12-01)
Never have more beautiful plant identification books been produced. (Joanne S. Carpender National Gardener)
Lucid, concise prose, providing links, cross-references, valuable comments and a useful glossary. (Aldona Satterthwaite Canadian Gardening)
The plants look as if they are living specimens lying on the page ... the photographs are amazing. (Floral and Nursery Times 2003-05-14)
Combines impeccable photography with expert commentary ... there are simply no other books of this caliber available today. (James A. Baggett Backyard Solutions)
Botanists, students and gardeners will delight in these two stunningly illustrated, encyclopedic tomes ... Lavish compendia contain scientific facts and lore ... [photographs] show remarkable detail and are carefully arranged so that seed, fruit and important identifying parts can be seen up close. They display the specimens at various stages of development, from blossom to fall foliage, to stunning effect. (Publishers Weekly 2002-07-29)
A green thumb's essentials, with exquisite photographs and extensive descriptions. (Elle Decor)
A striking visual presentation of the science of plants. (Beth Botts Chicago Tribune 2002-11-24)
[Recommended for plant identification:] A monumental work containing exquisite plant images. (Steve Whysall CanWest News Service 2005-09-16)
Impressive... fascinating and fun to browse or to search for specific plant information... Enjoy! (Barney Lipscomb Botanical Research Institute of Texas)
About the Author
Roger Phillips was trained as a painter at Chelsea School of Art. He has 30 books to his credit, which have sold well over 31/2 million copies worldwide. Phillips has won numerous awards, including three for book design, and has written and presented the major television series, The Quest for the Rose.
Martyn Rix is a botanist, plant collector and gardener. He studied botany at Trinity College, Dublin, and at Cambridge, where he wrote his doctoral thesis. After working as botanist at the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden at Wisley, he became an independent botanical advisor and writer and has since produced 17 books and numerous scientific papers, as well as 23 illustrated books with Roger Phillips. Rix is on the Picture Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society and has been awarded the Gold Veitch Memorial Medal by the Royal Horticultural Society for his services to horticulture.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Botanical Garden Volume I: Trees and Shrubs
Introduction
Our aim in this book is to provide new information and a new way of looking at plants and gardening from a more botanical viewpoint. The plant families are covered systematically, and the relationships between them are discussed; readers will be able to put the knowledge they have acquired piecemeal into a framework, and understand the botanical groups and the similarities and differences between them.
Genera and plant evolution
This book is based on the genus, genera in the plural, the Latin word for family, class, or race. Plants are classified in a hierarchy of many ranks, but the only three commonly used are family, genus, and species. To take an example, the black or water birch Betula nigra is a species in the genus Betula and the family Betulaceae. A genus is usually a very natural and familiar grouping, such as oak, beech, day-lily, or dahlia. Many genera are small and easily recognised by a combination of characteristics not found in another group of plants, for instance the green flowers, lobed leaves, and dry, winged seeds of Liriodendron, the tulip tree. Other genera are large, with tens or even hundreds of species, and can be further divided into subgenera; some botanists may consider these subgenera worthy of division into distinct genera, for example the division of Cornus into Benthamidia, Chamaepericlymenum, and Swida. Modern studies sometimes confirm these divisions, or sometimes show them to be artificial. The plant world can be imagined as a huge, chaotic, and multi-stemmed tree, branching repeatedly, with some branches dying, others thriving and waxing or waning in importance through the millenia. Some branches have survived almost unchanged for millions of years, others that were formerly very important have died out. A few have left just one or two remnants as isolated individuals on remote islands, in gorges, or in mountain forests; others have prospered and now exist as thousands of species.
The classical arrangement
Botanists are faced with the problem of showing in a list this complex result of millions of years of different lines of evolution. Linnaeus' system was based strictly on the sexual parts of the plant, the number of styles and stamens in each flower. This was convenient and worked quite well, but it was clearly artificial. Botanists soon began to work on more natural systems reflecting the evolutionary ancestry of plants, and ever since have continued the search for more natural groupings. The classical order of families was based on the premise that evolution of flowers was from the simple to the complex; thus magnolia and its relatives, with large, simple flowers, were considered especially primitive; daisies, on the other hand, with many flowers aggregated into a head that looks like a single flower, were considered advanced.
New developments
To classify modern plants accurately, we need to know their ancestry. Plant remains fossilize very poorly compared with bones or shells, but we can guess from fossils that trees in the coal-forming forests might have resembled giant clubmosses, horsetails, ferns, and conifers. Our knowledge of early flowering plants, probably appearing in the Jurassic, is even more scanty; it is likely many were aquatic herbs with no woody parts. Fortunately, we now have a new tool, DNA, to give clues to ancient relationships. DNA studies have confirmed the classical outline, but also show the true picture to be more complex. The relationships of several groups of plants that did not fit conveniently into any of the old schemes are now being clarified. Some of the major groupings and new evidence concerning their ordering are outlined on the following pages. Volume I follows broadly the order and relationships proposed by Kubitski and adapted by Mabberley in The Plant Book (1997); in Volume 2, I have been able to take into account more recently published DNA studies and have broadly followed the order proposed by Judd and co-workers in 1999. The monocotyledons are placed at the end in both volumes.
Tree ferns, ginkgo, and conifers
The ancient tropical swamp forests, which have ended up as coal today, were dominated by giant clubmosses, seed-ferns, and tree ferns, with primitive conifers. Few remnants of this flora have survived, probably because of the drastic changes in the world climate between the warm, wet Carboniferous and the dry Permian periods. Only some ancestors of Osmunda and relatives of the huge tropical fern Marattia survived from these warm forests; the modern ferns are a result of active evolution and divergence during the Triassic and Jurassic. Most of the tree ferns (see pp.16-17) are found in wet, cool tropical and subtropical forests, and the hardier ones come from the southern hemisphere. Ginkgo biloba (see p.18) is a remarkable survivor, the only one of its family. The leaves of this species and of many other, now extinct, Ginkgo species are found as far back as the Jurassic, and throughout the northern hemisphere in the early Tertiary. A second species, G. adiantoides, survived until the Miocene in North America, and into the Pliocene in Europe. Ginkgo biloba survived somewhere in China, where it was recognised as something special by early Chinese civilisation and widely planted in temple gardens. Other relicts such as the conifers Metasequoia glyptostroboides (see p.38) in China, and Wollemia nobilis in Australia also show how an ancient genus can survive in a small remote area. Conifers are today by far the most important group of ancient woody plants; they are thought to have originated as far back as the Devonian, but most of the present-day families can be traced back only as far as the Jurassic or Triassic.
Magnolia, bay, and Calycanthus
This group of families is interesting in having various combinations of primitive characteristics, that is, features that may have been present in the earliest flowering trees to grow on earth. Primitive wood anatomy, aromatic leaves, spirally arranged floral parts, and simple stamens with undifferentiated filaments are characteristics common in the group and thought to be primitive. In Magnolia, Michelia, and Liriodendron (the Magnoliaceae, see pp.56-59), the flowers are large and often showy, with numerous spirally arranged petals, stamens, and ovules. The related family Annonaceae (see p.65) is mainly tropical, and contains the custard apple, Annona, and the North American pawpaw, Asimina triloba. Winteraceae (see pp.60-61) which includes Drimys, is also primitive in many characteristics and probably belongs with the magnolia group. Also related to the Magnollaceae are the small but interesting families Illiclaceae (see p.63) and Schisandraceae (see p.62); Schisandra, with its unusual red, fleshy fruits in hanging chains, and Kadsura, with similar fruits in a round head, are the only genera in the latter. The bay tree family, the Lauraceae (see pp.66-71), contains over 2500 species, mainly in the tropical forests. Most species have small flowers but sometimes large fruit, for example the avocado tree Persea americans. Others are aromatic, including the bay itself, Laurus, and Cinnamomum, the cinnamon. Related to Lauraceae is the Calycanthaceae (see pp.72-73), containing both the chocolate-brown flowered Carolina and California allspice, Calycanthus, and the lovely white-flowered Sinocalycanthus, recently discovered in China.
Witch hazel and Liquidambar
The witch hazel family, Hamamelidaceae (see pp.99-109), and the related Cercidiphyllaceae (see p.96) are superficially similar in many characteristics to the catkin-bearing plants such as hazels (Betulaceae, see below and p.119). Hamamelis itself has clusters of strongly scented flowers with ribbon-shaped petals; in Corylopsi
Product details
- Publisher : Firefly Books; First Edition (September 7, 2002)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 492 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1552975916
- ISBN-13 : 978-1552975916
- Item Weight : 5.1 pounds
- Dimensions : 9 x 1.5 x 11.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,471,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,602 in Gardening & Horticulture Reference (Books)
- #1,804 in Gardening Encyclopedias
- #3,650 in Antiques & Collectibles Encyclopedias
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They are lavishly illustrated with several full-colors photos artfully arranged on each heavy, glossy page (over a thousand altogether in the two volumes) showing the flowers, leaves, fruit, seeds, catkins, etc. of the plants. The photos are identified by date of the year taken: the leaves 1/3 life size of Lindera megaphylla, for example, on May 5th, the flowers 2x life size on March 8th, and so on for hundreds of different species. The presentation is not exhaustive of course, but plants from all the major genera are represented, taking into account the "classical arrangement" and the new evidence from DNA in the classifications. Note well the overall title of this two-volume set: "The Botanical Garden." These are books for gardeners who have become amateur botanists, for weekend naturalists who have outgrown their field guides. The plants described and pictured include the giant Sequoias and redwoods as well as the ephemeral weeds of the roadside, not just plants that one might want to grow in a garden or even a city park.
The text is sprightly, terse and scientifically informed. The family of the genera is given and the number of species known and where they grow, e.g., "...in western North America and eastern Asia." The plants are described, e.g., "fast growing...to 30m...," the bark and the leaves are described, how pollination is achieved is explained. (It is interesting to note that sometimes the qualification "presumed by insects" is used, pointing to the incompleteness of our knowledge.) "Key recognition features" are given, as are notes on evolution, ecology and geography. Finally there is a "Comment" which may give the historical, cultural or scientific significance of the plants.
There are two minor weaknesses in the books: (1) the common names of the plants, e.g., "strawberry tree" (Arbutus unedo) are sometimes given and sometimes not. Additionally, when--as is often the case--there are several common names, only one or two are given; (2) there are no photos of the entire plant showing its crown and shape. Speaking of the strawberry tree, the authors remark that "The name unedo means, 'I eat one,' because the fruit is so insipid that nobody is tempted to eat a second." However I recently collected a few of the exquisitely beautiful fruits of Arbutus unedo and found out that the fruit itself is not insipid; in fact it is rather tasty, like a kind of peach or apricot jam; but unfortunately is covered, as though spray-painted on, with a thick and bitter, very red outer coating--I cannot call it a skin--that is almost impossible to separate from the fruit within. And so only someone very, very hungry would go to the trouble of eating more than one.
The emphasis is on identification and beauty, and on the accuracy of nomenclature. Yes, beauty. Above all else I would say this set celebrates the timeless beauty of the botanical world. Of all the books I have seen on plants this is at once the most beautiful and the most helpful in terms of identification. These are volumes to turn to when you come home with the field guide in your hand.
There is a nearly identical glossary in both volumes, a short bibliography and individual indices. It is important to note that this is not a reprint of some venerable opus, but a completely new compilation copyright 2002. As such it is authoritative in a way that some older books may not be.
Of course trees and shrubs is too big a topic to fit within the covers of a single volume and it is not surprising to notice that the authors occasionally drop the ball and make quite silly errors. Obviously it would be too much to expect anybody to be fully informed on the whole range of plants covered.
Perhaps the most noticeable thing missing from this work is light. Quite a lot of the trees and shrubs included here have dark green foliage and in the pictures not much detail can be made out. A bit more light in photography would have made quite a difference.
All in all this is a book that will look good on the bookshelf and will be appreciated by anybody who is fond of trees and shrubs and is not afraid to look beyond the confines of the own garden.


