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Elisabeth C. Miller Library

Fine Gardening’s Plant Guide

A simple search gives access to over a thousand plant descriptions, many with photos and readers’ opinions. Or browse by many different categories, such as variegated foliage, flower color and height.

Trees for Seattle

The City of Seattle encourages the planting of trees along public streets. This site is the umbrella for all of the City of Seattle’s urban forestry efforts. Trees must be planted to standards outlined on this website. Lists of recommended trees, graded by size, and prohibited trees are included.

Chinese Medicinal Plants, Herbal Drugs and Substitutes

[Chinese Medicinal Plants, Herbal Drugs and Substitutes] cover

“Herbal drug ingredients (materia medica) are pivotal to the practice of herbal Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), an integral component of China’s national healthcare system.” After this introduction, the authors of Chinese Medicinal Plants, Herbal Drugs and Substitutes: An Identification Guide discuss the rising global demand for these medicinal plants and their drugs and the need for their proper identification and descriptions in English.

I first read this book with some skepticism. Is it just a well-produced guide to medicines based on folklore? Several facts changed my opinion.

All identified drugs are in the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China as compiled by that country’s Ministry of Health. The authors are at two prestigious organizations that worked together for fifteen years on this project. Christine Leon is at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Lin Yu-Lin is at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. This collaboration and the depth of scholarship convinced me of the academic merit of this work.

This is not a small field guide. Large in physical dimensions and over 800 pages, it is a major reference work describing both the living plants and the harvested and prepared parts used in medicine. The cross-referencing, especially between Chinese and Western traditions, is extensive. I recommend it to anyone working with or interested in traditional Chinese medicine.

Published in the June 2018 edition of Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 5, Issue 6.

A New Garden Ethic

[A New Garden Ethic] cover

I recently read and returned a new book to the Elisabeth C. Miller Library: A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future by Benjamin Vogt. As I told Laura Blumhagen, this is one of the most important books I have ever read. Bear in mind, I read about 100 nonfiction books a year and I’m not easily impressed. It reminds me of Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac, but I find it even better written. In just 163 pages, it contains a rich world that eloquently presents the complexity of our gardening landscapes and practices. Reading the book feels as if you are speaking with its author, and as if he were a lifelong friend. Part history, part memoir, part genealogy, this book conveys a deep sense of its author and of place. It is so absorbing that I bought a copy for my own collection, anticipating sharing and re-reading it.

The author begins with the exposition of a new garden ethic: moving beyond a preoccupation with beautiful trees and flowers to gardening as if other species and other ecosystems mattered. And, of course, they do, as we are coming to realize rather late in the age of global warming. Our gardens matter, and how we tend them matters. Vogt points out that the new garden ethic goes beyond just planting natives to include the preservation of spaces for birds and insects. His third chapter explains why we believe what we believe about gardening and landscape. The fourth chapter includes a brief but informative overview of historic landscape design and public gardens and parks, offering examples of places that he considers exemplars of a new garden ethic.

The book ends with the challenge and plea to learn new languages, for example, from insects and birds, and to change our gardening practices to move beyond beauty to the support of an entire world, inhabited by many other species. Don’t miss the delight of reading this thought-provoking book!

Published in the June 2018 Leaflet for Scholars, Volume 5, Issue 6.

Botanical Shakespeare: an illustrated compendium

[Botanical Shakespeare] cover

If you are attending outdoor Shakespeare plays this summer and enjoy plants, this book is for you! With the collaboration of the noted Japanese artist Sumié Hasegawa-Collins, Gerit Quealy provides an alphabetical portrait gallery of plants – The Botanicals. You can discover Shakespeare’s flowers, fruits, herbs, trees, seeds, and grasses. Quotations beside the drawings of the plants themselves allow us to experience their “faces” in fascinating and helpful ways. For example, cockle, a flowering weed found in wheat fields, is metaphorically used to describe corruption. It is mentioned by the frantic Ophelia in Hamlet and the raving Jailer’s Daughter in Two Noble Kinsmen.

The foreword is by Helen Mirren, who has taken on many Shakespeare roles, including switching up the male character Prospero in The Tempest. Mirren notes her love of gardening began during her time with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford.

This book is pure pleasure: you can thumb through and find a quotation about your favorite plant or learn something new in Botanicals Defined: Syllabic Sketches at the back of the book. I learned that beans seem to suffer from a low reputation in Shakespeare, and are often used as horse feed or food only fit for the poor. The glossary illuminates the history of Shakespeare’s era with facts, plant lore, anecdotes, and clever illustrations. For example, the entry on the “Barnacles” mentioned in The Tempest tells of a fourteenth century traveler’s tale, accepted by John Gerard, about geese that developed in barnacle-like pods on a tree. We now know that barnacle goslings are hatched by mother geese on islands in the Arctic, but Shakespeare’s “Barnacles” would have alluded to a strange plant/shellfish/bird chimera. The most impressive part of this book is how frequently plants arise in William Shakespeare’s work.

This labor of love was inspired in part by Gerard’s Herball as well as Shakespeare’s Plants and Gardens: A Dictionary by Nicki Faircloth and Vivian Thomas . On our wish list, this 2014 dictionary is not currently available in local libraries. The author also cites Henry Ellacombe’s The plant-lore and garden-craft of Shakespeare, which has been made available electronically at Archive.org by University College London.

Published in the June 2018 Leaflet Volume 5, Issue 6.

Ecological Literacy

[Ecological Literacy] cover

When is the right time to re-read a classic? When the message is compelling and more urgent than ever, as is the call for ecological literacy. Political and business leaders as well as students at all levels of the education system need to fully recognize that the earth is a complex system of interrelationships – geographic, economic, ecological, and sociopolitical. We are all members of this community of life, and need to do our part accordingly.

Ecological literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World is edited by Michael J. Stone and Zenobia Barlow of the Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley, California. American educator David W. Orr and physicist Fritjof Capra coined the term ecological literacy in the 1990s to mean understanding the principles of organization of ecological communities and using those principles for strengthening human communities.

The book features contributions from a range of distinguished writers and educators, such as Wendell Berry, Malcolm Margolin, Alice Waters, as well as David Orr and Fritjof Capra, who share their knowledge and empathy for how the world works and makes life possible. At the basic level, it helps educators weave themes of ecology into their teaching from many perspectives. The book sections include Vision, Tradition/Place, Relationship, and Action.

Published by Sierra Club Books, this book calls upon us to refresh, strengthen, and expand our solution-oriented thinking for a sustainable world. The action of one individual can make a great difference in the well-being of the earth. It is time for each of us to renew our commitment.

Reviewed by Dorothy Crandell and published in the June 2018 Leaflet Volume 5, Issue 6.

Cal Poly UFEI SelecTree

A tree selection guide from Cal Poly Urban Forests Ecosystems Institute including trees native to CA and elsewhere. Allows search by characteristics and mentions general root growth tendencies for many trees that grow in the PNW. Although this service is based in California it provides considerable practical information for all regions about many tree species and their suitability in urban environments. A nursery connection map helps locate sources to buy specific trees.