In a Garden Library
NOTABLE NEW BOOKS ON PLANTS AND GARDENING
B y B r i a n R . T h o m p s o n
All the books in the following review were nominated for the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries Annual Literature Award for 2021 . To learn about the award , visit www . cbhl . net .
COMMON GARDEN PLANTS — ENDANGERED IN THE WILD I first glanced through “ Rare Plants ” by Ed Ikin for the beautiful plant images : artwork and herbarium specimens from the vast collections of Kew Gardens dating back to the 1700s . These alone would make the book worthwhile , but much more is on offer . The heart of this book is a collection of essays on 40 plants from around the world that are rare or unknown / extinct in the wild . What ’ s surprising is that many are very familiar to gardeners in the Pacific Northwest .
An example is the monkey puzzle tree ( Araucaria araucana ), whose distinctive profile is frequently seen on the Seattle landscape . Native to the slopes of the Andes Mountains in Chile and Argentina , it is endangered because of heavy harvesting for timber , slow regeneration
after intense fires ( often deliberately set ), habitat destruction for agriculture , and competition from exotic plants , such as eucalyptus .
One traditional way to preserve rare plants is through seed banks , but that is not an option for the monkey puzzle because its seeds do not survive the desiccation and chilling procedures typical at these facilities . The author recommends instead growing the tree in suitable climates as a preservation technique , and also planting groves to emulate the natural associations of these dioecious plants . ( The future Chilean Forest at the Arboretum ’ s Pacific Connections Garden will contain such a grove !)
These stories are an engaging way to study conservation and threatened plants , and the author ’ s choice to illustrate them using historic documents is very effective . Ikin , the deputy director of Kew ’ s wild botanic garden at Wakehurst , also raises some difficult questions — especially for plant collectors in the UK and in North America .
For example , the African violet ( Streptocarpus ionanthus ) is a mainstay of the multi-million dollar houseplant industry but has become exceedingly rare in its native Kenya and Tanzania . The author asks , should these countries receive some of the profit from the sale of these plants , now cultivated elsewhere ? Aloe vera , a plant well known by many non-gardeners for its presumed healing qualities , is now unknown in the wild .
26 v Washington Park Arboretum Bulletin