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The
Garden - An English Love Affair: One Thousand Years of Gardening It was in 1960 that Miles Hadfield first published his History of British Gardening, a survey of our gardening from Eden to John Brookes, and written for the enthusiastic and informed gardener rather than for the historian. Periodically, ever since, further books have taken a fresh shot at the subject, with differing degrees of idiosyncrasy and comprehensiveness, and published according to the fashion of the day with increasing amounts of illustration. New from Penelope Hobhouse and Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, come two fresh assaults on the subject. It is perhaps right that Hobhouse should be tackling this subject. She is an eminent practising gardener and designer, but she also has a formidable grasp of garden history combined with the ability to write engagingly for the general reader. This approach to the subject, coupled with the publisher's lavish level of illustration, makes for a book which is likely to remain a standard text for gardeners over many years to come. Hobhouse approaches the whole history of gardening from a gardener's point of view, of course focusing on the broader issues of design and philosophy, but always keeping the practical and horticultural element well to the fore. She also pulls in briefly the gardening traditions of other continents, in so far as they have influenced our own. In all, it is a satisfying exploration of gardening, through both words and pictures, and a book into which one can easily go back to consult a particular point. By contrast, Fearnley-Whittingstall's book is a smaller and less copiously illustrated volume, dealing solely with British gardens. Less of a visual sourcebook (although the illustrations which include many twentieth century paintings are a delight), it tackles garden history most efficiently through a fresh and idiosyncratic selection of examples, with plenty of quotation from original sources. But there is a tendency here to concentrate on grand design and philosophy for the first 900 years, then to lean suddenly more toward horticulture and smaller scale gardening in the twentieth century. Indeed the twentieth century takes up a third of the book. If this is because in the twentieth century ornamental gardening genuinely became a hugely more popular pursuit, it nonetheless leaves the reader feeling a little under-informed on how ordinary people gardened until the twentieth century. One longs for a little more social history to make sense of the garden history, and to satisfy the book's subtitle 'An English Love Affair'. A chapter on nineteenth-century public parks, for instance, would not have come amiss. It is not an easy book to read, although the style is fluent enough. The chapters are sometimes broken up, not by sub-headings, but instead by selected telling phrases from the text, which make sense as sub-headings afterwards but not as you reach them. One feels, perhaps, the anxious hand of an editor here, unwilling to loose whole chapters of running prose upon the modern reader. I personally had no problem with this prose-biased approach, except to say that I could wish the book had a greater willingness to reach some more conclusions from its deliberations. Even personal conclusions. Stephen Anderton The Story of Gardening by Penelope Hobhouse (468 pages) is published by Dorling Kindersley, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL Price £25.00 ISBN 07513 3390 5. The Garden - an English Love Affair: One thousand years of gardening by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall (360 pages) is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, The Orion Publishing Group Ltd, Orion House, 5 Upper Saint Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EA. Price £25.00 ISBN 0297 843 079.
The
Plant Life of China
Nor should we ignore the huge number of Chinese plants recognised for their medicinal and economic use, in China certainly. The flora of China is a subject that has challenged the finest most experienced scientists and writers but notwithstanding Joseph Needham's notable review in Science and Civilization in China; a satisfactory, comprehensive account has yet to be published. The present slim volume is but the latest in a long line of books dealing with one aspect or another of the flora; in this instance, diversity and distribution. It offers, in the author's own words 'an overview of the subject'; a brief; albeit interesting and selective, update that will be of interest to serious students and others concerned with the Chinese flora, its potential and its future. There are chapters on the history of Chinese plant science as well as landscape and climate, native plant distribution, Chinese plant exploration, medicinal plants and the obligatory statement on conservation and the environment. For the rest of the book, there are brief accounts of selected families and genera plus numerous tables and 16 pages of colour plates of variable quality. Both authors are practising botanists and an impressive selection of scientific opinion has been trawled in compiling this account. I am a little concerned therefore, to find so many spelling errors among the plant names. I am also puzzled by some of the taxonomy. The correct name for the "Chinese Gooseberry" or "Kiwi fruit" as it is commonly known in the west is surely Actinidia deliciosa not A. chinensis whilst Rosa xanthina is, I believe, a semi-double yellow rose known only in cultivation and is not the same as forma hugonis previously known as R.hugonis which is single and found wild in central China. I am also curious
about the absence of the botanically interesting and ornamentally important
Sinocalycanthus chinensis, unless the authors consider it conspecific
with the American Calycanthus. If I understand this account correctly
they also consider the Chinese tulip tree Liriodendron chinensis
as inseparable from the American L. tulipifera. News to me! The Plant Life of China by G P Chapman and Y Z Wang (268 pages) is published by Springer, Haberstrasse 7, 69126 Heidelberg, Germany. £45.00. ISBN 3540 42257 9.
Allium
Crop Science: Recent Advances.
The principal edible Allium species including onion, leek, garlic and shallot, all receive attention and there is a comprehensive chapter on ornamental alliums containing information on over 100 species of ornamental potential. Chapters are well structured and each has a useful section of conclusions. In addition to clear figures and diagrams, the volume contains a section of well-produced colour plates. Editorial notes help to link related chapters and a comprehensive list of references at the end of each chapter enables the reader to pursue each topic to even greater depth. Although there are a small number of website addresses within the text, I am surprised that these are not included more liberally as an aid for the reader wishing to keep up with future developments from the institutes and research teams working on alliums. The value of this
type of publication is that it encourages specialists to look beyond their
individual lines of research to related subject areas and ultimately to
the practical problems of crop production. The book contains information
of interest to plant breeders, seed companies and bulb growers, in addition
to researchers and horticulturists. Allium Crop Science: Recent Advances. Edited by H D Rabinowitch and L Currah (516 pages), is published by CABI Publishing, CAB International, Wallinford, Oxfordshire OX10 8DE. £95.00 ISBN 0 85199 510 1. BOOK DISCOUNTS
Linnaeus
in translation
Philosophia Botanica was first published in 1751. Its publication followed that of several of his earlier works including Systema Naturae (1735) and Fundamenta Botanica (1736). Philosophia Botanica is an expanded version of Fundamenta Botanica with added commentary, and represents a critical stage in the evolution of Linnaeus' ideas and the development of his binomial nomenclature applied to plants. In this new translation of Philosophia Botanica, example pages from Linnaeus' original Latin text are presented alongside Stephen Freer's English translation of the complete text. The book contains images of all ten of the original tables, which illustrate the shapes of leaves and other plant structures and forms. Also included are Linnaeus' explanations of the effects of soil and climatic conditions on plant growth, plus six short memoranda that describe Linnaeus' botanical excursions, his ideas for garden layout and herbarium construction, and his thoughts on what was required of a botanist and his pupils. ISBN 0 19 850122-6. (£125.00). For more information
visit: www.oup.co.uk/science
or alternatively contact: Science Marketing, OUP, Great Clarendon Street,
Oxford OX2 6DP. |