Rating:  Summary: Good beginning. Review: "Succulents: The Illustrated Dictionary", is the original work of these two partner authors. This concise original offers hundreds of succulents, beautiful and strange, in scientific names. The photographs are as beautiful as "Cacti: The Illustrated Dictionary", but more close up. However, for this guide to be complete, the sequel also needs to be bought along with the original. "Succulents 2" is almost identical to the original in photo and binding quality, which are fine. However, you may as well be purchasing half a book if you only buy one of the series. Both are needed for completion. The content is rich, featuring different succulent families, such as the poisonous "Euphorbia" genus. (I am still waiting to purchase the sequel to find more interesting families.) When you have these, there is not a chance that you will misidentify differing species.
Rating:  Summary: Good beginning. Review: "Succulents: The Illustrated Dictionary", is the original work of these two partner authors. This concise original offers hundreds of succulents, beautiful and strange, in scientific names. The photographs are as beautiful as "Cacti: The Illustrated Dictionary", but more close up. However, for this guide to be complete, the sequel also needs to be bought along with the original. "Succulents 2" is almost identical to the original in photo and binding quality, which are fine. However, you may as well be purchasing half a book if you only buy one of the series. Both are needed for completion. The content is rich, featuring different succulent families, such as the poisonous "Euphorbia" genus. (I am still waiting to purchase the sequel to find more interesting families.) When you have these, there is not a chance that you will misidentify differing species.
Rating:  Summary: No cultivation information Review: I am a beginner with succulent plants and rock gardening. This is a very pretty book with information & photos for identifying plants. I find the pictures a bit small (about 2"x3.25"). For me, differentiating some of the Sempervivum species (or Jovibarba) would be difficult with the description and photos provided (someone more expert may find the descriptions quite sufficient).I really NEED more information on habitat and cultivation. For me, sun exposure, soil & water requirements, pest problems and such are what I want right now. Also of interest, how variation in sun exposure and water will effect color & habit, cold and heat tolerance, winter protection. Once again, for a more experienced gardener, or someone wanting to move into more exotic succulents (I am working with Sedum, and "hens & chicks" (common name)) this may rate five stars. I did learn that what I know as "hens & chicks" could be Sempervivum, Jovibarba, or Graptopetalum. This is an example of why it would be nice to have a common name cross reference, as mentioned by another reviewer. Initially, I thought I would return the book, but have decided to keep it. I have learned about some species that I would like to grow, if I can get information on their culture & habit. This reference will allow me to get new species to experiment with. (This may mean special orders, as local nurseries have limited supplies of common plants.) So far, the Crassulaceae family is where my interest lies - See, I have learned something of value!
Rating:  Summary: No cultivation information Review: I am a beginner with succulent plants and rock gardening. This is a very pretty book with information & photos for identifying plants. I find the pictures a bit small (about 2"x3.25"). For me, differentiating some of the Sempervivum species (or Jovibarba) would be difficult with the description and photos provided (someone more expert may find the descriptions quite sufficient). I really NEED more information on habitat and cultivation. For me, sun exposure, soil & water requirements, pest problems and such are what I want right now. Also of interest, how variation in sun exposure and water will effect color & habit, cold and heat tolerance, winter protection. Once again, for a more experienced gardener, or someone wanting to move into more exotic succulents (I am working with Sedum, and "hens & chicks" (common name)) this may rate five stars. I did learn that what I know as "hens & chicks" could be Sempervivum, Jovibarba, or Graptopetalum. This is an example of why it would be nice to have a common name cross reference, as mentioned by another reviewer. Initially, I thought I would return the book, but have decided to keep it. I have learned about some species that I would like to grow, if I can get information on their culture & habit. This reference will allow me to get new species to experiment with. (This may mean special orders, as local nurseries have limited supplies of common plants.) So far, the Crassulaceae family is where my interest lies - See, I have learned something of value!
Rating:  Summary: No cultivation information Review: I am a beginner with succulent plants and rock gardening. This is a very pretty book with information & photos for identifying plants. I find the pictures a bit small (about 2"x3.25"). For me, differentiating some of the Sempervivum species (or Jovibarba) would be difficult with the description and photos provided (someone more expert may find the descriptions quite sufficient). I really NEED more information on habitat and cultivation. For me, sun exposure, soil & water requirements, pest problems and such are what I want right now. Also of interest, how variation in sun exposure and water will effect color & habit, cold and heat tolerance, winter protection. Once again, for a more experienced gardener, or someone wanting to move into more exotic succulents (I am working with Sedum, and "hens & chicks" (common name)) this may rate five stars. I did learn that what I know as "hens & chicks" could be Sempervivum, Jovibarba, or Graptopetalum. This is an example of why it would be nice to have a common name cross reference, as mentioned by another reviewer. Initially, I thought I would return the book, but have decided to keep it. I have learned about some species that I would like to grow, if I can get information on their culture & habit. This reference will allow me to get new species to experiment with. (This may mean special orders, as local nurseries have limited supplies of common plants.) So far, the Crassulaceae family is where my interest lies - See, I have learned something of value!
Rating:  Summary: exactly what I expected. Review: Really nice book... just loaded with pictures. If you are looking for a photo reference of a lot of succulent plants, this book does the trick.
Rating:  Summary: Very Valuable Review: This book has an excellent selection of photographs that enabled me to choose what to buy from the many catalogs that only list plants by name. If you want propagation information you can get that from the places you order the plants. Great book with great pictures.
Rating:  Summary: I love this book. Review: This book is packed with great pictures. Great information. Highly recommended.
Rating:  Summary: An excellent source Review: This book would be an excellent addition to any succulent lover's library. The photographs are outstanding, and do not focus so much on the flowers of a species as others in the genre do. It is so much easier to identify that unknown plant when you have a picture of the entire plant to go by. The only negative is that "common" names for plants were not given. I would've appreciated that. I also would've liked a "care & cultivation" (general) section for each type of succulent (or wish the authors would write such a book).
Rating:  Summary: Great Succulent Identifier... Review: This is a really great book, if you want to identify succulents. According to the book, it was inspired by Cacti: The Illustrated Dictionary, same publisher. If you are looking for a book that will help you identify succlents, then this is the book for you. It has wonderful photographs, and I was pleased to be able to identify a mysterious succlent plant of mine within the first 10 minutes of owning the book. The only thing that I did not like, which is why I am not giving this book a 10 is that the entries run up and down instead of left to right. I could not understand why the authors and publishers did not set up the book like the cacti book was set up. In my opinion this made things a little more difficult to read. However, this was the only fault. If you decide to get this book, it would defintely be worth your money.
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