A Book review- Botany for Gardeners
Some time in adulthood, we found that green growing things possessed a serene and calming nature and literally oozed this wonderful characteristic into our lives. Subtle at first, but with ever growing awareness, we began to look at the world of plants, of gardens with renewed wonder. Without ever realizing it, we became hooked- hooked for life. True gardeners at heart.
Most of us come to gardening gradually. We acquire the knowledge, the skills, the eye largely by trial and error. We delve into our long buried childhood memories, trying desperately to remember the wisdom of the ages passed onto us by our mentors. Sometimes successfully, sometimes through the rose tinted glass that memories often become. We read books on gardening and plants that pass on new information and often reinforce our memories, and on occasion shatter our pre-conceived notions.
Thus our true knowledge about botany, plant science, usually consists of an amalgam of information from a variety of sources that arrived over a period of time, often decades. Its filed by our brains in niches and crannies as acquired- sometimes lost to recall. We often wish we could achieve a better overall understanding of what it is we're doing when we garden. Passion will do that to us. It will give us hunger to know and understand ever more about our avocation.
Thus enter Brian Capon's book Botany for Gardeners(Timber Press, 1990)- the book every non-professional horticulturalist should consider reading. This book presents the science of Botany, the study of plants, in a manner that is easily understandable and readable. Capon is able to bring information to the casual and avid gardener in a manner that is logical and understandable. And did I mention it is readable- that the gardener can sit down and follow the discussion and relate his or her own experience to the topic at hand.
The book is organized around 5 basic principles: Growth, Organization, Adaptation, Functions, and Reproduction. While addressing these 5 functions Capon takes us through the biology of plants... what makes them tick and yet in the end we have an in depth appreciation for the plant as a whole and for plants as part of our biosphere. Along the way we learn why plants are important not only for our survival, but also learn a little bit about why plants are important to our economic institutions.
Like pretty much all botany texts, Capon begins with
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