Re: New Books on South African Proteas and Fynbos
- Subject: Re: New Books on South African Proteas and Fynbos
- From: K* L*
- Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 14:21:54 +0100
Tim asked about equivalent books to the "Fynbos" one.
The only one I know of for California is "California's Wild Gardens" 1997
ISBN 0943460-34-4. The title is rather misleading in that it isn't about
"Cultivated" gardens, but the natural plant communities of California,
covering many different areas. It is published by the California Native
Plant Society, and is exceptionally well produced, with many marvellous
colour photographs as well as maps. It is the book I take with me when I
visit the dentist, it is such a diverting book (even the dentist is
interested in seeing it)!
At the risk of upsetting our American members of this list, in general I've
found books about American native plants rather disappointing in their
production, often with only very small poorly reproduced photos. If there
are other books of the quality of the above on American native plants I
would like to know of them.
Sadly, to my knowledge, Chile is a Desert for native plant books. Apart
from some specialist Cactus books, the only other books I have come across
are the Adriana Hoffmann books which I believe are only available in
Spanish.
As to the Cape area, there have been many marvellous South African plant
books published over the past 70 or so years.
And to try to keep an even hand on the parts of the world, there is "Plant
Life of Western Australia" by Beard 1990 ISBN 0 86417 279 6, which takes a
similar approach to WA including the Mediterranean area.
And then there's Dallmann's "Plant life in the world's mediterranean
climates"... I could go on endlessly, there are so many good plant books!
Regards
Keith Larkin
