COVER TO COVER

Leafing through books for gardeners and cooks

Chris Staff ord

HORTI CURIOUS By Ann Treneman, Exisle Publishing, $39.99 Compiled by a London Times columnist, this delightful book is what used to be called a “miscellany”, a compendium of botanical and horticultural oddities cherry picked — or, more exactly, harvested — for the delectation of the inquisitive gardener. It begins with the anatomy of a flower and a word about the classification of plants before plunging into a thicket of curiosities, randomly organised but offering endless counterpoints and quirky asides. An entry on poisonous plants such as belladonna prompts a note on wolf’s bane and the Wolf Man of horror cinema; the subject of botanical illustrations (and this book is lush with them) brings up Pierre-Joseph Redouté, the so-called “Raphael of Flowers” who painted more than 1800 species and became a…

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Good Organic Gardening (Digital) - 1 Issue, 15.4

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