Book Reviews: Horticultural

Grey-Wilson opens with an essay on the "magic of cyclamen," and then quickly gets down to business with chapters on cultivation, pests and diseases, cyclamen botany, the taxonomy of the genus Cyclamen as a whole, and the various groups of cyclamen species. Each species is considered in detail, including the history of its study, its botany, its biogeography, and its cultivation. Grey-Wilson's thoughtful analysis of a recent classification scheme (p. 42) gives the reader confidence that what is being read about the plants themselves is equally well considered. Next comes cyclamen cultivars, and logically, an entire chapter devoted to Cyclamen persicum, the florist's cyclamen. Hybrids, aberrant plants, technical listings of the various Cyclamen species, and a discussion of the conservation of wild cyclamen species rounds out Grey-Wilson's discussion of the plants themselves. Appendices give a convenient key for identification of Cyclamen species, lists of sources for Cyclamen in the United Kingdom, lists of awards which may be given to various cyclamen by the Royal Horticultural Society such as its Award of Garden Merit, cyclamen societies, national collections of cyclamen within the United Kingdom, and collector's numbers for various accessions. A thorough bibliography completes this important work.

Throughout Cyclamen A Guide for Gardeners, Horticulturists, and Botanists, numerous color pictures illustrate the species and cultivars discussed with a useful mixture of close-up views to show details of flowers or foliage and more distant photographs to illustrate stands of these plants in the garden. Grey-Wilson's extensive personal experience in cultivation, brought into the various discussions of species and cultivars throughout the book, makes another strong selling point for Grey-Wilson's book.

Though the author's breadth and depth of knowledge and his fluid style make this an excellent volume for a professional library or for a serious amateur gardener, not to mention university libraries, the small type face irritates the reader. Also, the text has an obvious slant toward information relevant to British gardening and the British climate-no sources of cyclamen in the United States are listed. This limits the usefulness of the book for American gardeners outside the Pacific Northwest, since over most of the United States many or most of the cyclamen species and cultivars discussed will only be able to be grown indoors. In spite of these faults, and Grey-Wilson's frequent reliance on the passive voice, e.g. the majority of the paragraphs on p. 116 begin in the passive voice, Cyclamen A Guide for Gardeners, Horticulturists, and Botanists deserves to sell many copies. Buy one. - Douglas Darnowski, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana IL 61801

Trilliums Case, F. W., Jr., and R. B. Case, 1997. ISBN 0-88192-374-5 (cloth US$29.95) 285 pp. Timber Press, Inc., 133 SW Second Avenue, Suite 450, Portland OR 97204-3527. - Here is an attractive book on Trillium that appeared, sadly, hot on the heels of the premature death of John Freeman, the monographer of the sessile trilliums (subgenus Phyllantherum). Fred and Boots Case have used Freeman's work, and that of other Trillium workers (all cited in a fairly full bibliography), as the botanical foundation for a book that is still decidedly their own. They have spent years with the North American trilliums, visiting and photographing them all in the field and growing and hybridizing them in their garden. The result is a work that combines bookish descriptions with first hand observations of population variation and garden worthiness. The distillation of their experience with cultivating the various species will be especially welcome to the growing body of wildflower and naturalistic gardeners. The Cases are not unmindful of the conservation issues raised by this popularity, in fact they emphasize them. They clearly feel that the horticultural industry will eventually conquer the barriers to propagation that have so far led to wild digging for most commercially available trilliums. Even this may be justified, at times, during the course of rescue operations" accompanying development.

There are a series of brief but accurate and informative introductory chapters outlining the basics of morphology, life history, natural and artificial hybridization, diseases (including a strong caution against growing plants with the insidious greening mycoplasma of T grandiflorum), propagation, conservation, and classification. Following a nicely illustrated and usable key that successfully separates the indistinguishable, the bulk of the book is given over to species accounts arranged alphabetically within three groups: North American pedicellates, North American sessiles, and Asians. The species accounts are uniform, with full descriptions, pertinent field and garden notes, and where and when the plants may be found. Each is accompanied by a (slightly crude, pixel-ated) distribution map and at least one (usually superb) color habit photograph. The description section (peculiarly headed "habit") covers the above ground parts fairly thoroughly, but occasionally with amusing errors, like petals 30-60 cm. long in Trillium cuneatum or leaf size and shape varying from green to bluish-green in T. sessile.

There is something of an obsession with flower color variants among Trillium taxonomists, who seem to think that each one must be formally described and named as a botanical forma. The Cases dutifully record all of these (some of them reluctantly) and point out a few more that they've seen but mercifully haven't baptized. If propagation of trilliums is ever feasible, these color variants and natural and artificial hybrid derivatives will be fertile ground for naming cultivars under the ICNCP (a point also taken up by the Cases). The Trillium enthusiast will also want to examine the numerous variants portrayed in the beautiful and detailed paintings and drawings in K. & J. Samejima's 1987 Trillium Genus Illustrated, a book mostly in Japanese, but with parallel English species accounts. This book was the basis of the Cases' treatment of the Asiatic Trilliums (though its scope includes North America), but they have simplified it and provide a rather different distribution map of T. tschonoskii. In general, they are less familiar with the Asiatic species, which differ from the North American ones in the prevalence of polyploidy. It's a shame that this relative unfamiliarity led them to leave out the Himalayan, which is closest to Trillium and traditionally included in the genus.

The Cases have previously published numerous reviews of Trillium species and their cultivation for horticultural publications as disparate as the Bulletin of the American Rock Garden Society and the Bulletin of the Arboretum Waasland in Belgium, but this book far outclasses those preparatory works and stands on its own. It is required feasting for all trilliophiles. - James E. Eckenwaider, University of Toronto.

Hollies: the Genus llex Galle, Fred C. 1997. ISBN 0-88192-380-X (cloth US$59.95) 619 pp. Timber Press, Inc., 133 SW Second Avenue, Suite 450, Portland, OR 97204-3527. - Hollies: the Genus Ilex, including chapters by Harry William Dengler, Alden Hopkins, and Libby Hodges Oliver; presents an eclectic and fascinating look at a major landscaping plant and a seasonal horticultural crop. "Eclectic" applies here in a positive way, since much of the information expected from a monograph, or something near a monograph, is included along with many other interesting facts - see the material on hollies in art and the many photographs of holly used in decorations. Perhaps this book should have been entitled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Hollies Plus a Whole Bunch of Things Of Which You Hadn't the Foggiest Notion." Botanical information and terminology appropriate for the professional are included-there is even a very correct complaint from the author about the sometimes-sloppy collecting methods which have confused the arrangement of some recent discoveries in the genus. This reviewer must note how pleased he was to see the inclusion of material on Colonial Williamsburg, with pictures of the lovely holly topiaries in the Governor's Palace gardens and elsewhere and of the Christmas decorations. The holly found there is truly outstanding.

In Part I the author takes us through holly history and folklore, landscaping, orcharding, topiary, bonsai, Christmas decoration, and art. Part II gives us the taxonomic history of the genus, a survey of morphological characteristics, and a review of holly systematics. Part III surveys the various species and cultivars, breaking them down into deciduous and evergreen categories. This material includes a very thorough review of the known cultivars from both categories. Part IV completes the book with extensive discussion of planting, pruning, propagation, breeding, and pathology of hollies. Appendices cover the Holly Society of America, holly sources, holly fossils, holly collections, and holly breeders. Black and white illustrations pepper the text, and over 200 color plates are included in a central section showing flowers, foliage, and fruit of various hollies along with important holly collections and cultural methods. A number of these photographs are blurry, but their inclusion is still reasonable since they illustrate important points.

Together, Hollies: the Genus Ilex is a volume which every university library should have. It would be valuable for the personal libraries of many, including horticulturists and landscape architects, and should be inIuded on the reading lists of horticulture, landscape architecture, and woody plants classes. Its readers need not have intimate familiarity with botanical names of landscaping plants, since common names are also included. For an example, see "Companion Plants" on p. 26. The information is largely directed at an American audience, though not exclusively. For example, European sources for material are given, and many Ilex species from the tropics are considered. - Douglas Darnowski, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana IL 61801

The Gardener's Guide to Growing Irises Stebbins, Geoff, 1997. ISBN 0-88192-388-5 (cloth US$29.95) 160 pp. Timber Press, Inc., 133 SW Second Avenue, Suite 450, Portland, OR 97204-3527 - The Gardener's Guide to Growing Irises displays good balance between horticultural information and taxonomic information, between information from the author's experience in Britain and information relevant to American gardeners, between detailed description and broad-scope views. The text is written in an outstandingly fluid style, especially given that some of the material falls into the class commonly called "garden writing." This book is written with useful practical information, and the author's stated intent is to avoid excess detail in describing cultivars "Iris are ... in a state of flux, with new hybrids continually being introduced. Earlier plants are soon superseded, and in this book I have tended to recommend either those older hybrids that are likely to remain with us for some time to come or newer plants that show significant improvements." (p. 7) This sort of balanced view and moderate amount of detail permeates this book.

Right away, in Chapter 1, the author shows us a very clear organizational sense: "Even in a book intended for practical gardeners a certain amount of technical explanation is required for the reader to understand and appreciate the different plants in a genus such as Iris. To some extent this is the most important chapter in this book because it puts the plants described in other chapters into context and where plants have botanical affinities, often cultural, similarities can be assumed." (p. 10) The good sense of the author also stands out in lines such as "Any classification system is open to question and to change because it is an artificial structure imposed on a naturally evolving set of plants." (p. 13) He further shows good sense with balanced criticism of outlandish breeding practices when he says "Just as rose breeders are criticized for creating roses that have little scent, some iris hybridizers may have concentrated too much on novelty of flower type and colour and neglected the rest of the plant." (p. 31)

The chapters in The Gardener's Guide to Growing Irises begin with classification and botany, followed by chapters on the various taxonomic divisions of the genus: bearded iris, Siberian iris, Pacific (US) Coast iris, water iris, spuria iris, stinking iris, and dwarf bulbous iris. Interesting historical notes are also included, such as in the various stories behind the identification and naming of the Iris as the fleur-de-lys. Stebbins then considers irises for specialists, irises as cut flowers, irises in the garden, general iris cultivation, and iris hybridizing. At this point several better known iris growers from the United Kingdom are interviewed, producing the only disappointing chapter in the book. The briefly stated personal preferences of these gardeners arc neither particularly interesting nor do they fit the overall style of the book. A final chapter deals with other cultivated members of the Iridaceae, such as Neomarcia, a common house plant. Appendices include lists of cultivars, iris collections, iris sources, iris societies, award winning irises which have received the Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit or the American or the British Dykes Medal, iris siting suggestions, and an excellent glossary. Do you know the difference between arilbred irises and arilmed irises?

Line drawings clearly illustrate botanical characters as they vary through the genus Iris, and the many color pictures give an informative survey of the genus. Several of these color plates have a layout which resembles that used in other volumes from the Gardener's Guide series published by Timber Press. One figure particularly relevant for gardeners and amateur breeders shows, on pp. 102-103, step-by-step how to cross pollinate irises, with their unusual floral system including falls and standards. Sources of Iris material and societies concerned with the culture of irises are well balanced between those from the United States and those from the United Kingdom.

This book would fit well into a university library, a professional library for a botanist or horticulturist, or the library of an amateur gardener. It is appropriate for the reading lists of undergraduate or graduate courses in a number of the subdivisions of plant biology, such as horticulture or floriculture. Whoever buys The Gardener's Guide to Growing Irises receives a real bargain. - Douglas Darnowski, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana IL 61801