Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #448339 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 492 pages

From Library Journal
Photographer Phillips and botanist, plant collector, and gardener Rix have already collaborated on 23 horticultural books. Their latest project covers more than 1000 genera of plants in the world's temperate regions. Each volume is arranged in evolutionary order by family, from the most primitive to the most advanced. Each genus entry includes a detailed botanical description of the genus, key recognition features, evolution and plant relationships, ecology and geography, and facts about the genus ranging from garden uses to medicinal uses. Most compelling are the spectacular, close-up color photographs that exquisitely detail every plant part. Unfortuntately, the lack of detailed cultural information, USDA hardiness zones, and specific species information makes this work less useful for gardeners than other horticultural works. The price tag will keep this set out of some public libraries, which would be better served by Steven M. Still's Manual of Herbaceous Ornamental Plants and Michael A. Dirr's Manual of Woody Landscape Plants. For a work with extensive color photographs, public libraries should instead consider Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs. This set is recommended for botanic and academic libraries.
Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove P.L., IL
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The strict botanical viewpoint of Phillips and Rix offers scholarly gardeners an alternative to popular horticulture guides. In two classy volumes illustrated with detailed photos of leaves and bracts, blossoms, rhizomes, and root structures, the text expresses the value of plants to ecology, farming, and the individual orchard, landscape, flower bed, and window box. Arranged into groups in evolutionary order, the plants appear on individual pages or multipage spreads alongside scientific name, concise description, locale, and designation of hybrids and cultivation methods. The commentary is reduced to the blunt shorthand of the scientist, but the 4,000 pictures are pure art. Rounding out each volume are a succinct two-page glossary of such terms as loess, raceme, and umbel and a brief bibliography organized by continent.

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

Sue O'Brien, Library Journal 10/15/2002
Most compelling are the spectacular, close-up color photographs that exquisitely detail every plant part.

Customer Reviews

Well above average
This is a pretty nice book. Of course it is always a relief to find a work without the ubiquitous hardiness maps and gardening advice. This handsomely printed volume in full color is a pleasure to browse through. Finally an arrangement of trees and shrubs that makes some sense, instead of the haphazard (read alphabetical) arrangement encountered so often. Although the authors wisely avoid the trap of involving themselves in the morass of common names they definitely miss a trick by not giving the etymology of the botanical names. It is quite odd to see a laurel-like picture of Daphniphyllum and not be able to read that "daphne" is the Greek word for "laurel" with "phyllus" the Greek for "leaf"

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.