Book Review: Garden Flora, by Noel Kingsbury
This is not a book about how to garden. Instead, it tells the stories of 133 genera of plants, from both before and after they got mixed up with people and their gardens. It contains a diverting mixture of science, legend, and horticultural history.
Here’s a sample of things I learned:
- A species of Bellflower, Campanula rapunculus, was once widely grown in Europe as a vegetable. In one of Grimm’s fairy tales, a man stole some C. rapunculus from the garden of a woman who turned out to be a witch. To avoid punishment, he promised the witch his next child – a girl named Rapunzel, after the plant.
- Several species of Cistus exude an aromatic gum used to make incense. The gum was harvested by cutting off the beards of goats who fed on the plant.
- In the 19th Century, Dahlia breeding served as a front for Czech nationalist resistance to the Hapsburg monarchy in Vienna.
- Magnolias go back 98 million years, to the days of the dinosaurs. Predating bees, the first Magnolias were pollinated by beetles.
If this kind of thing is interesting to you (as it is to me), you will enjoy this book. It is a book you can read straight through, or pick up when the fancy strikes you.
In addition to the text, the illustrations in Garden Flora are also quite luscious. They include paintings and botanical illustrations of different eras and cultures, modern and historical photography, and illustrations from old catalogs.
Overall, this is an engaging and absorbing book for people who love plants.
gardeninacity 
Sounds interesting–I have a couple of his books co-authored with Piet Oudolf.
Yes, I have a couple of those also. I liked ‘Hummelo’ very much.
I will look out for this book . Noel is an interesting man with a scientific background. He came to my house for lunch a few years when he was talking to my gardening group. The Pianist usually loses the will to live when gardeners come for lunch but he really enjoyed Noel’ s company.
He does sound like a very interesting guy.
Sounds like my kind of book. Thanks for the review.
You’re welcome.
Damn, there’s another one to add to an already long list.
Your choice of tidbits from the book piqued my interest. Your book reviews usually do that.
Then my work here is done.
I believe magnolias are still mostly pollinated by beetles.
And then there are entire classes (families? orders?) of plants that evolved prior to insects (i.e., ferns) and reproduce completely independent of any insect help.
I didn’t know that about magnoliias (obviously). I sort of was aware about the ferns, though.
Very interesting book Jason .. Magnolias going back to the dinosaur days & beetles pollinating them… Wish I’d had this when I was teaching. Will definitely get a copy.
Didn’t know you were a teacher. What age group?
Teaching “English as a second Language” to ages 5 to 12 years of age. Good fun!
With fascinating facts like that, this book is a must for me!xxx
I hope you enjoy it!