Poppies: The Poppy Family in the Wild and in Cultivation - Hardcover

Grey-Wilson, Christopher, Ed

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0881922323 ISBN 13: 9780881922325

Publisher: Timber Press, 1993

Synopsis

In addition to the true poppies of the genus Papaver, the other genera in the poppy family are featured in this profusely illustrated book, including favorites such as Eschscholzia, the California poppy, and Meconopsis, the fabled blue Himalayan poppy.

About this title

Review:

A field of common red poppies growing wild by the roadside can transform an ordinary landscape into a place of mystery--their fervent, insistent color seems designed to take the breath away. For readers who've fallen under the poppy's spell, Christopher Grey-Wilson's Poppies: A Guide to the Poppy Family in the Wild and in Cultivation is an exhaustive work of research and classification of this remarkable and mysterious flower.

The book starts out with a brief, no-nonsense introduction that serves as a road map to the reams of information contained in the subsequent pages. Grey-Wilson, botanist and editor of Alpine Garden Society, has organized the poppy family into four main subfamilies: the Chelidonioideae, Eschscholzioideae, Papveroideae, and Plastytemonoideae. Within these subfamilies a series of varieties are delineated. In entries of varying length, Grey-Wilson provides information about zoning, propagation, advice on garden placement, and various other remarkable and somewhat unpredictable details. While some poppies described here can be found at any local garden store, others are not in cultivation and were last sighted in Turkey or Iran. Containing 182 color photographs, Poppies will satisfy readers who want more than just the basics, who want the whole scientific story, and then some. --Emily White

About the Author:

Christopher Grey-Wilson has been the Editor of the Alpine Garden Society since 1990, and is also a freelance horticultural writer and photographer. For many years he was a Principal Scientific Officer at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, working as a Research Botanist, and as Editor of Curtis' Botanical Magazine. He has been on a number of major botanical expeditions in pursuit of the mountain floras of Europe and Asia, particularly those of the Himalaya and southwest China. He is the author of several books regarded as standard works, including The Genus Cyclamen, The Illustrated Flora of Britain and Northern Europe, How to Identify Wild Flowers, The Alpine Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe, A Manual of Alpine and Rock Garden Plants, and The Alpine Garden. Recently published by B.T. Batsford is his comprehensive work Clematis the Genus. He serves on a number of committees of the Royal Horticultural Society, who recently awarded him a Gold Veitch Memorial Award.

About this edition

• Publisher: Timber Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0881922323
• ISBN 13: 9780881922325
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208