Tales of the Rose Tree: Ravishing Rhododendrons and Their Travels Around the World - Hardcover

Brown, Jane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1567923127 ISBN 13: 9781567923124

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2006

Synopsis

The history of rhododendrons is full of swashbuckling plant collectors and visionary gardeners, colonial violence and ecological destruction, stunning botanical successes and bitter business disappointments. And it is here related with consummate skill by Jane Brown, an English garden writer clearly besotted by these “glorious and scented strangers, with their mouth-watering candy colors, their cascades of way bells or iridescent globes proffered in ruffs of green leaves.”

About this title

About the Author

Jane Brown is the author of The Modern Garden and The Pursuit of Paradise: A Social History of Gardens & Gardening. She lives in Cambridgeshire, England.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Jane Brown's Tales of the Rose Tree

"Fascinating. . . . An engaging history of British horticulture told through the story of the genus Rhododendron." -- Sir Ghillean Prance, former director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

"Learned and lively." -- Daily Telegraph

"A stimulating counterblast to prevailing taste [and] and engaging social study -- even a rather funny one." -- The Independent

From the Inside Flap

From its origins fifty million years ago to its arrival in England in the early 1600s; from its export from America by John Bartram in the 1760s to its vigorous collection by Harvard's Arnold Arboretum in the 1870s; from the foundation of the British Rhododendron Society in 1915 to the genetically engineered hybridizations of the early 21st century: this is the sweeping and exciting botanical epic that Jane Brown provides in this remarkable book. She achieves exactly what she sets out to do - 'to construct a history of the genus Rhododendron that pays tribute to the mystery and majesty of these plants' - and does so with a scholar's thoroughness and the anecdotal skill of an enthralling entertainer.

Reviews

Brown's entertaining homage to the majestic rhododendron provides a voluminous exploration of the development and significance of this lusciously romantic and elegantly exotic garden gem. With a color palette ranging from dramatic purples to ethereal pastels, these denizens of American swamps and African jungles are equally at home clinging to remote Himalayan mountaintops and craggy Asian coastlines. Encompassing more than a thousand species, rhododendrons exude an undeniable mystique that has historically captivated both commoners and kings, whose desire for increasingly impressive examples initiated voyages of plant discovery that provided the foundation for some of the world's most renowned arboretums. In many ways, the evolution of the rhododendron from alien specimen to garden center staple mirrors the arc of Western civilization itself. Brimming with lively anecdotes involving many of horticulture's most revered individuals and institutions, Brown's history of the genus rhododendron is ecumenical in approach yet accessible in style. Carol Haggas
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Edition details

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1567923127
• ISBN 13: 9781567923124
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320