BOOK REVIEWS

The Origin of Plants
The People and Plants that have Shaped Britain's Garden History

Maggie Campbell-Culver
Eden Prioect Books
$NZ29.95
Reviewed by Gordon Roberts

THIS scholarly book is written from a British perspective, but has wider implications.

Throughout history Britain's spectacular garden and private and public collections have become the largest repository for plants from all corners of the globe. Today with the almost daily disappearance of plant species from our planet, the reality of mass extinction gives Britain's resource new significance.

This book is far more than a mere compendium of which plants arrived in Britain and when they arrived. Maggie Culver-Campbell's probing into why they were sought and brought makes intriguing reading.

Galling for Kiwi readers will be the rather limited acknowledgement of New Zealand's contribution to this plant pool, while other reviewers have pointed to historical inaccuracies in the documenting of our botanic gardens.

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH