The Gardener's Atlas: The Origins, Discovery and Cultivation of the World's Most Popular Garden Plants

Dr. John Grimshaw's Gardener's Atlas isn't your usual gardening guide: it provides a survey of the history of world flowers and foliage, charting where 20 plant families originated, how they spread around the world, and how they flourish today. With maps, botanical color prints and photos, and sidebars of information useful to plant breeders and avid gardeners alike, this is packed with information simply not seen elsewhere.

This is a great botanical history. I was impressed with the little vignettes of the great plant finders, many of whom lost their lives trying to find great new plants. I happened to be reading the book while driving through the Smokey Mountains and seeing the Lobelia cardinalis at the same time I was reading how the Queen of Spain named it because it was such a brilliant red it reminded her of a Cardinal's robe. If you love plants, you will love this book. The book is orgainized roughly by plant family, which is fine. I was a bit annoyed that there were pictures of period gardens stuck everywhere throughout the book (in the middle of the plant family organization). Rather than being in the middle of the chapters, I think these wonderful pieces could have been between the chapters. Actually I was so interested in what I was reading, I didn't appreciate the also wonderful interuption. By the way, I passed by a whole hillside of Tradescantia in the Smokey Mountains while reading about the Tradescants (father and son) who brought that great plant to Europe.The only thing I would caution is that the book is great reading, but for history, not how to grow the plant in your garden, especially if you are in the US, since the author is from England and cultural requirements are not his strong point.

I think this is a very interesting book.