RHS Latin for Gardeners: Over 3,000 Plant Names Explained and Explored: More than 1,500 Essential Plant Names and the Secrets They Contain

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It's going to take some time to properly enjoy it, and it's also one that I will keep by my chair to refer to often. Vernacular names for plants may be pretty but they are often regional and so quite useless for speaking to people round the world as we do with our blogs. It allows us to find our way around nurseries; it sorts out confusions when two plants have the same English name; and it gives us all kinds of information about how big or small a plant will grow, what shape or colour it will develop, and what habitat it prefers.

Harrison's "Latin in Action" sections were cute and nicely illustrated but it bugged me that in the explanation of Aconitum napellus monkshood, "like a little turnip, referring to the roots" the illustration does not include the root! Perhaps not a book that is essential to your gardening success, but a book that provides a good deal of entertainment and enlightenment. Readers will learn to identify Latin terms that indicate the provenance of a given plant and provide clues to its color, shape, fragrance, taste, behavior, functions, and more. The naming of plants draws upon geography, social and medical history, folklore, mythology, language, literature, the human body, the animal kingdom and all manner of ancient beliefs and superstitions.Reference books that are fun to use and a joy to behold are rare - this one will serve me well as a guide for planting that garden I surely have in my future. This allows gardeners to make new connections and discoveries in a way standard alphabetical lists don’t permit.

This is the ideal gift for a keen gardener, and absolutely perfect for anyone fascinated by botanical plant names. This amount includes seller specified domestic postage charges as well as applicable international postage, dispatch, and other fees.Its charitable work includes providing expert advice and information, training the next generation of gardeners and promoting the ecological, aesthetic and psychological benefits of gardening in an urban environment.