Plants of the world

[Plants of the World] cover

“Plants of the World” by Maarten J. M. Christenhusz, Michael F. Fay, and Mark W. Chase is the first book to explore systematically every vascular plant family in the world. The plants are organized in a modern phylogenetic order, in which more than 450 families are described and illustrated.

Following an introduction that sets out the various aspects that are covered in the treatments, the entries follow an encyclopedic format with information about distribution, phylogeny and evolution, numbers of genera and species, uses, largest genome, and etymology. Illustrations are color photographs showing key features of selected representatives. Small global distribution maps are included.

The information isn’t detailed but the entries capture in a summary manner the basic features of every vascular plant family in the world. The end matter includes a glossary, further reading, general references and index.

This ambitious book seems like an important reference work that will set the tone for further works to follow.

Excerpted from the June 2019 Leaflet for Scholars Volume 6, Issue 6

Flora : inside the secret world of plants

[Flora] cover

I didn’t expect to like “Flora: Inside the Secret World of Plants.” Publications from big institutions (in this case the Smithsonian and Kew Gardens) can be ponderous. At first glance, it looks like an overblown coffee table book. Lovely photos, but – yawn – not much interesting content.

I was wrong. I recommend this to every gardener. Start with the Table of Contents – pedantic advice, yes, but seeing the layout helps you understand the book’s flow. First, it answers the question, what is a plant?

The rest is very systematic, starting from the ground up with roots, moving along the stems and branches to the leaves and flowers, and finally seeds and fruits. It makes a lot of sense to read this in order.

The publisher is DK, well known for books with strong graphic design and as expected, the illustrations are excellent and enhance the text. The individual concepts are brief, easy bites, but as you read, you’ll pick up all sorts of knowledge about the plants you love that will inform your gardening. Along the way, too, there are brief bios of the people of plants – the botanists, the gardeners, the illustrators. It’s a surprisingly complete package.

Excerpted from the June 2019 Leaflet Volume 6, Issue 6

The History of Landscape Design in 100 Gardens

Ugh. That was my first reaction to the title “The History of Landscape Design in 100 Gardens.” I immediately pictured a dull, dusty history book.

When I opened the book, I was surprised. Choosing a random page, I was hooked by the narrative and soon fully engaged. Author Linda A. Chisholm skillfully weaves stories of gardens and gardeners seamlessly within the prevailing styles and the broader culture of their times.

To do this, she uses “one hundred of the world’s great gardens, chosen to illustrate the history and principles of landscape design and to answer the question of why a particular style became dominant at a specific time and place in history.”

This history begins with a wide swath from the 9^th century to the 15^th century C. E. This was a time when gardens were enclosed, providing protection from the dangerous world outside. This style was used in both Christian and Muslin gardens, the latter in part represented by the Alhambra in Spain.

A later chapter, entitled “The Poppies Grow”, explores how “designers of five beloved gardens find solace in opposing the industry that led to war.” These gardens include Hidcote, Sissinghurst, Great Dixter, and Dumbarton Oaks. I’ve been to all, but I will now better appreciate their shared purposes.

Each of these entries are short, but – as a librarian friend of mine commented – meaty. Most of the gardens will be familiar. There is an emphasis on European and American history, although the two chapters that linked European and East Asian gardens were especially insightful. For example, I have never considered the similarities between French Impressionism and Japanese garden design of the same period.

This is a wonderful way to teach a challenging subject – the history of design. The author’s astute organization of the chapter topics, along with the photographs of Michael D. Garber, make this book work. I wish there was a broader selection of west coast gardens (there are two, both in Sonoma County, California), but that is a small quibble. An excellent bibliography leads the reader to a wealth of other publications to pursue these topics further.

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Summer 2019

Garden Wise : Non-Invasive Plants for Your Garden

[Garden Wise] cover

How do you convince gardeners, landscape designers, or nurseries to avoid planting or selling invasive plants? An effective tool is to provide alternatives – plants that provide a similar aesthetic but do not wreak havoc on our native plants and ecosystems.

“Garden Wise: Non-Invasive Plants for Your Garden, Western Washington Guide” is just such a tool. Published since 2006, the newest edition (2019) presents a selection of herbaceous, groundcover, aquatic, and even woody plants that are invasive in western Washington. Described typically with two photos, a close-up and a landscape shot of an aggressive stand, each entry will help even the casual plant observer identify the culprits. One example is Yellow Archangel ( Lamiastrum galeobdolon), a “trailing plant [that] easily establishes wild populations, in many cases as the result of improper disposal of garden cuttings or hanging baskets.”

Best of all, at least three alternatives are described for each invasive plant, also with photos that demonstrate their similar “look” and garden appeal. Many of these are natives. As an alternative to Yellow Archangel, the gardener is encouraged to consider Wild Ginger ( Asarum caudatum), a native groundcover that also grows well in part to full shade.

The Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board heads a long list of organizations (including the UW Botanic Gardens) that have produced this document. Coming soon is a similar booklet for eastern Washington. Both will be available in the Miller Library, or in .PDF format at the Board’s website (www.nwcb.wa.gov).

Excerpted from the May 2019 Leaflet for Scholars Volume 6, Issue 5.

Flora of the Pacific Northwest : an illustrated manual

For Pacific Northwest botanists of all levels, the one-volume book informally known as “Hitchcock” has been standard equipment since its publication in 1973. This work, “Flora of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Manual” by C. Leo Hitchcock and Arthur Cronquist, was intended as a field version of the five-volume flora “Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest,” written by the same authors with two additional botanists and two illustrators from 1955-1969.

“No scholarly endeavors are immune to the advancing frontiers of knowledge.” This quote is from the introduction of the new, second edition of the one-volume “Flora,” expanded by a team of four editors with three new illustrators. Changes in taxonomy, especially from molecular studies, plus newly described taxa and the establishment of non-native species (which this flora includes) have created a long overdue need for an update.

In the 45 years between publications, there has been a nearly 25% increase in the number of taxa included, the biggest single reason being “the establishment, or detection, of additional exotic taxa within our area.” While this work does not introduce any new names or classifications, just keeping up with widely accepted taxonomic changes has resulted in over 40% of the listings in the first edition having a new genus and/or species name, or being placed in a different family.

Hitchcock was a long-time professor of botany at the University of Washington. He was also a gardener, and many references remain in the 2nd edition regarding the ornamental qualities and garden adaptability of the subjects.

These include the observation that the incense-cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) is a fine ornamental tree, and that “trilliums are rather easily grown, and T. ovatum in particular is an excellent garden pl [plant], but it is a shame to dig them in the wild, esp [especially] since they grow readily from seed.” This urging of conservation (as well as the use of abbreviations) is a repeated theme: “The lilies are a constant temptation to the avaricious gardener, but our spp. [species] rarely thrive in cult [cultivation] and should not be removed from the wild.”

Like the first edition, this book attempts to be comprehensive in its presentation of species, subspecies, and varieties throughout Washington, much of Oregon and Idaho, the western part of Montana, and southern British Columbia. The first edition introduced the new (at the time) idea of embedding the species descriptions and illustrations within the taxonomic keys. This proved to be a good decision. It has remained a best-seller for the University of Washington Press for the last four decades.

At 882 pages (the first edition had 730), it is perhaps a bit hefty for field work, but this is a must for your home garden library. The aforementioned use of abbreviations keeps it from becoming even bigger, and this is a bit of a challenge for reading at first. But after a while, this shorthand becomes familiar. The Miller Library has a lending copy of the new edition, and keeps non-circulating copies of both editions and the earlier volumes of “Vascular Plants.” Be sure to take a look at this new standard for our regional botany!

Excerpted from the Spring 2019 Arboretum Bulletin.

Olympic National Park : a natural history

Olympic National Park book cover “Olympic National Park: A Natural History” was first published in 1996. Author Tim McNulty and University of Washington Press have now come out with the fourth edition (2018). It’s no wonder this book has been so popular. McNulty is an excellent essayist and the subject is a mostly unspoiled, large-scale ecosystem, from seashore to mountaintops, the latter easily seen on a clear day from Seattle.

This is not an identification book or field guide. There are photographs, but they mostly set the mood of the book by being clustered up front. Instead, this a reading book, intended to be savored cover-to-cover, to gain an understanding of the flora and the fauna in broad settings: the mountains, the forests, and the coast. The author concludes with the human history of the region, especially pre-European, and the much more recent struggle to establish and maintain the integrity of the national park and its ecosystems.

This newest edition is the same as the previous (2009) in large part, but includes the story of the removal of dams on the Elwha River. It also updates efforts to restore the animal life as found prior to the influence by European and eastern North American settlers, with the reintroduction of fishers and the removal of non-native mountain goats.

The Olympic Peninsula is sometimes described as a refugia, a place where plant and animal species survived while disappearing from nearby locations. This is in part because of the wide range of topographical niches, caused by extreme changes both in elevation and rainfall over short distances. Species could adapt by moving to nearby, suitable habitats.

Earlier history is part of this story, too. While much of the peninsula avoided glaciation, “the ice age and the climatic upheavals that preceded them have reshuffled the deck of plant and animal communities wildly in the Olympic Mountains…alpine and sub-alpine species mixing willy-nilly with lowland plants and varieties.” This gives hope that these mountains and lowlands will continue to provide refuge for plants during future climate change.

Excerpted fom the Spring 2019 Arboretum Bulletin.

Buzz : the nature and necessity of bees

Buzz book cover I was very impressed with the story-telling skills of Thor Hanson that I discovered when reading his “The Triumph of Seeds” (see review in the Fall 2015 issue of the “Bulletin”). He makes scientific research easy to understand and an adventure that’s fun!

“Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees” is Hanson’s newest (2018) book. As before, he combines just the right touch of personal, local experience – he lives on an unidentified island in the Pacific Northwest – with wide-ranging research. For this book, he traveled to Sri Lanka to investigate a bee-like wasp, and to southern Africa, one of the ecosystems where honey bees are native.

“Bees are the vegetarian descendants of a sphecid wasp ancestor from the mid-Cretaceous. That much is known.” As these wasps are not vegetarian, why and how did bees make this dramatic lifestyle change? This is still a mostly unanswered question, but Hanson seeks out some of most recent research and insightful researchers to explore the possibilities.

This led him to participate in “The Bee Course”, a nine-day, intensive study set in the Arizona desert in August. Why there and then? Arizona has the highest concentration of bee species (1,300) in North America and unlike tourists, they don’t mind the heat and are particularly busy during the flush of flowers by many cacti and other wildflowers at that time of year.

During the course, Hanson became smitten with an alkali bee (Nomia sp.), a genus that has an opalescent exoskeleton, “flashing a rainbow of colors that shifted and swirled in the light.” While this species was a rare treasure from his visit to Arizona, he discovered later that near Touchet, Washington, alfalfa farmers have learned to create an environment to nurture native species of alkali bees in exchange for pollinating their crops. This is not a small-scale operation. There are an estimated 18-25 million nesting female alkali bees scattered over 300 acres.

There are other local connections, too. The author profiles Brian Griffin of Bellingham, well-known amongst gardeners and fruit-growers for his commercializing and promotion of keeping orchard mason bees. Hanson also made his own discovery, finding a cliff on a neighboring island to his own that is home to 400,000 digger bees – the largest know population of such bees – amongst a complex community of several other types of bees, wasps, flies, and beetles.

Excerpted from the Spring 2019 Arboretum Bulletin.

Pacific Northwest Insects

Pacific Northwest Insects book cover Fascinated by all the small life forms you find in your garden? Perhaps not, but it is still valuable for gardeners to know about them. “Pacific Northwest Insects” by Merrill Peterson will help. This excellent new field guide provides incredible color photos of over 1,200 species native to our region. The scope is the phylum Arthropoda, so this includes all the true insects (bees, beetles, butterflies, flies, etc.) plus centipedes, sow bugs, spider mites, and even spiders and ticks (yikes!).

This wider scope means this book provides better coverage of the many “bugs” you’ll find in your garden. Peterson recognizes the importance of plants to the insect world and visa-versa. “Given the specialized associations between insects and plants, it is no wonder that many entomologists are skilled field botanists.” This book is the most comprehensive in the Miller Library collection for this region and our reference copy will help you with any identifying invertebrate visitors to your garden.

If you can get past the creepy factor, there’s also a lot of fascinating facts to discover. Did you know that moths are a significant food source for grizzly bears in the Rocky Mountains fattening up for their winter hibernation? Or that beetles are the most diverse and numerous order of multicellular animals in the world, making up 20% of all species? Many visitors think the Pacific Northwest has limited insect life. That’s not true – this book will help you identify over 3,000 species – but we lack many “huge or gaudily colored insects.”

Excerpted from the Spring 2019 Arboretum Bulletin.

The Brother Gardeners

[The Brother Gardeners] cover

The Brother Gardeners tells the story of how the English garden came into glorious maturity in the 18th century. But its focus is on the men (alas, almost no women) who brought that garden into being, constructing it to include seeds and plants from the American colonies, and eventually from Australia, South America, Asia, and Africa.

Wars are treated by the brothers as annoying obstacles to be overcome. Political divisions are ignored in order to keep governments friendly to plant transport.

Wulf does a superb job of bringing to life the personalities of the gardeners: Linnaeus, John Bartram, Joseph Banks and numerous others. They all work indefatigably, write each other reams of letters, bicker, fail and try again throughout this book, as they serve the goddess of botany.

Linnaeus, without whose organizing system the huge explosion of new species imported by England would not have been manageable, was not always treated well by his English and Swedish beneficiaries. John Bartram, the American farmer, sought out new species all over the colonies and sent them to England. As a result, American plants became essential to English gardens. Joseph Banks, who focused both his energies and his fortune on collecting plants, spread his passion for botanizing until it became an English mania, and promoted successfully the development of an English policy of plant distribution to and from its colonies.

By the end of the 18th century, Continental gardeners were clamoring to create English gardens rather than the other way around, as had been past practice, and New World plants grew abundantly throughout the Empire.

Wulf describes all this in winningly readable, impressively researched prose. Added benefits are the 18-page glossary of plants and an index which includes both Latin and common plant names. The whole book is a delight.

Published in the March 2019 Leaflet Volume 6, Issue 3.

Designing with Palms

“Designing with Palms” by Jason Dewees is by a San Francisco based author, who profiles garden motifs evoked by palms across the country. For instance, Chamaerops humilis suggests a Mediterranean garrigue, an ecosystem with low shrubs, including rosemary and lavender, like one might find in a Seattle landscape.

While the author’s examples do not include a garden in the Pacific Northwest, those in temperate areas do give guidance for those who wish to try these iconic plants in our climate. I found the Riverbanks Botanical Garden in Columbia, South Carolina especially instructive, perhaps because Jenks Farmer, a Master of Science graduate from the Center for Urban Horticulture in 1993, had a major role in its design.

Dewees is well aware of the practical side of a garden with palms. His copious species notes include hardiness ratings – fined tuned to the exact minimum temperature – and many cultural and aesthetic tips. On caring for Trachycarpus fortunei: “Give them an updated look by pruning off the gorilla-hairy leafbases to reveal their smooth, ringed trunks…or leave them natural and tuck epiphytes such as bromeliads, orchids, and ferns among the fibrous leafbases.”

Published in Garden Notes: Northwest Horticultural Society, Spring 2019