Flora's Plant Names

Rating:
Summary: can't search by latin name
Review: can't search by latin name | February 13, 2004
Reviewer: B. Knapton from Chile ([e-mail])
I give this book one star because I need a book that can be searched from latin to common name, and vice-versa. The blurb on the back cover of the book says "gardeners will find this book useful because............they will be able to search by both common and botanical name." Well, I assumed the "botanical name" meant "latin name", and you can't search by latin name without reading every of the 20,000 entires until you find the right one; the entires are listed only by common names. Occasional, with genera such as Salvia, the names are in alphabetical order within the common names. On page 7 of the book the author equates "botanical names" with genus and species, so how, exactly, can one "search by botanical name"? I live in Chile and many flower books give down here give latin names, since some of these plants also occur in the north I had wanted to find the equivalent in English to better communicate with my clients. The book will obviously be useful for people in the US reading seed catalogs, but I believe the editor should, well, edit that back cover to let people know they can't search by latin names. I can't send the book back as the postage would be too high. So here I am stuck with a book that is nearly useless for me.