A Plant Encyclopedia for Everyone

by

Paula Szilard




A good plant encyclopedia can give you indispensable information to help you identify, choose or grow an unfamiliar plant.  It can tell you what plant family it is in, where it originated, describe major cultivated species, often with accompanying color photographs, and provide brief cultural information, including hardiness zones. It can also direct you from a common name to the Latin binomial where information is generally found.


Never before have gardeners had so many basic plant encyclopedias to choose from.  The American Horticultural Society has just issued a revised edition of its A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants (New York: DK Publishing), first published in 1997, this has become a standard work of reference in libraries and among gardeners.  The new edition, just out last fall, costs a hefty $80.00.  For members of the Society, it’s around $60.00.   At www.Amazon.com, you can get it for around $50.00.  This substantially revised and profusely illustrated work gives basic descriptions of plants, cultural information, hardiness zones and AHS heat zone designations, origins, plant families and major species that are horticulturally important.  Over 15,000 plants are described.  They are illustrated with over 6000 color photos. The common name index has always been and continues to be a useful feature.


Over the years the American Horticultural Society A-Z’s chief competitor has been Botanica; the illustrated A-Z of over 10,000 garden plants (Random House Australia, 1997).  It describes far fewer plants, but it’s a lot less expensive.  Before Christmas these encyclopedias were available at Barnes & Nobel for $20.  They might be available on the Internet for less.  It was always my second choice because it had fewer plants, but it occasionally covers plants omitted in the A-Z. It also has a common name index and excellent USDA hardiness zone maps applied to the whole world. 


Currently, though, the A-Z’s toughest competitor is Flora:  the gardener’s bible (Willoughby, NSW, Australia:  Global Book Publishing).  With over 20,000 entries, including food plants generally omitted in the above books and with as many as 5-12 color photographs per page, it’s a lavishly illustrated, visually stunning production.  You might be thinking that the encyclopedias from Australia cover mostly Australian plants, but that has not been the case.  The editors have taken great pains to address the information to all potential English language markets.  For instance, the book has USDA hardiness zone information for all of the plants. It has an extensive glossary that defines terminology you might encounter in the plant descriptions, along with beautiful illustration of leaf, flower and fruit types. There is also a useful common names index.  But its most interesting feature is the CD tucked into the front.  It’s fairly easy to use and seems to have the same information found in the book.  I got Flora for $59 at Costco before Christmas, but now the going rate is about $100 at bookstores.  It’s worth it, but not everyone will want to spend that much. 


Another old standard that’s always been aimed more at the horticulturist than the gardener is Hortus Third:  a concise dictionary of plants cultivated in the United States and Canada. (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1976).  Originally compiled by Liberty Hyde Bailey and his daughter, Ethel Zoe Bailey, it has now been revised by the staff of the Liberty Hyde Hortorium at Cornell University. Several years ago the price for a 2 volume, boxed quality paperback edition was $39.95.   The 23,000 entries are very brief, but authoritative.  There is a glossary, an index with common names, and an extensive list of authors cited, which helps decode the cryptic citations to names of botanists so common in the older botanical literature.  There are also many entries that deal with concepts, plant groups, e.g., bulbs, etc.  In spite of Hortus’ many virtues, its major defect is that it has very few illustrations—260 black and white drawings in a book discussing over 20,000 plants.  From the gardener’s perspective, this is indeed a major flaw.  Gardeners trying to identify plants know that a color photograph can be a huge help!  Although I am personally quite devoted to this book, having used it on the job several times a week for nearly 30 years, most gardeners and plant hobbyists will find the other books in this review more useful.