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This testament to the storied history of flowers contains all 104 engravings from the Hortus Floridus of 1614. All are the work of 17th century engraver Crispin van de Pass, and the original text describes the blooms in detail from roots to flowers. My favorite engraving shows a spring garden filled with flowering bulbs. I first saw it as a silkscreen reproduction in an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library, and, as a gardener, I felt a sense of reverence.There are 1,025 known species of the genus Rhododendron from the giant Burmese magnificum with a trunk that is three feet in diameter to the many-flowered bushes that dot our suburbs. An ancient native of eastern climes, it has made a name for itself in the western world over the last 250 years. Author Jane Brown calls its journey a story “full of violence, death and destruction, ravaged homelands, failures, heartbreaks and bitter disappointments. . . .The rhododendron, blithely and beautifully, continuing to flower, becomes the heroic exile.” The author, a renowned plant biologist, relates discoveries made in his lab during the year 2004 to the world outside. For me, Harberd himself is a discovery – a true scientist who is also a true writer. He delves into seeds with passion as well as authority and sprinkles philosophic observations along the way.
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