Keyword: Cactaceae (Cactus family)

Edward Anderson was for 30 years a biology professor at Whitman College in Walla Walla before finishing his career at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. The Cactus Family is the culmination of his life’s work as, sadly, he died shortly after publication, but more importantly because it will be a long-time standard reference for these popular plants.

While not a gardener’s book–a chapter on cultivation is included but is by a different author–this provides a superb view of the remarkable diversity of cacti, well captured by excellent photographs, most by the author and many in situ. Highly recommend, too, are the chapters on ethnobotany and conservation of cacti, which illustrate how important these plants have been and continue to be throughout their range in North and South America.

Excerpted from the Summer 2012 Arboretum Bulletin.