The Color Encyclopedia of Cape Bulbs

Rating:
Summary: Great refference book.
Review: An excellent reference book on cape bulbs. A wealth of photo's and information. Aspects of the book are on the technical side for a layman. But worth having.Highly recomended.

Rating:
Summary: A magnificent guide to a magnificent group of plants
Review: The flora of South Africa is a stunning example of bio-diversity in the world. Due to a large variety of habitats many plant families have developed a wide range of species, a lot of them endemic to this region. While botanical enthusiasts worldwide focus on succulent and caudiciform plants the unbelievably rich geophytic flora of the Cape (including the orchids) is not fully discovered for cultivation yet.

The Color Encylopedia of Cape Bulbs is a wonderful approach to overcome this situation. The authors present essential information about everything concerning this topic. Their book provides a general survey of the physical and biological features of the habitats. The topics cultivation and gardening are included as well. The information given is concise and precise and a very helpful background for botanists and cultivators, too. A glossary, a key to the species, a table of synonyms and a suppliers list at the end of the book finish the bulk of basic information.

The encyclopedic part of the book offers detailed descriptions of a wide range of bulbous plants of different monocot families. It is built up following an alphabetical order of the genera which allows to quickly find a species without expert knowledge about botanical taxonomy. Specified information about habitat and cultivation is given in the genus description.The species descriptions include all necessary items and are accompanied by wonderful photographs of many of these impressingly beautiful plants. It is astonishing to see what a variety of different looking species some genera have produced, for instance Gladiolus and Moraea from the Iridaceae family.

In summary, I highly recommend this book for botanists, for travellers to the Cape region with botanical interests and for gardeners as well. When I opened the encyclopedia for the first time I was fascinated for hours. The species descriptions and pictures alone are worth the prize of this book, in my opinion! Along with Karsten Wodrich's books about the South African orchids, the Encyclopedia of Cape Bulbs gives an impression of the geophytic plant treasures this region offers to all enthusiasts. And, last but not least, these books are an indispensable help to successfully cultivate them.