This is a perfect bedside book for the literate gardener and makes a terrific gardener"s gift book. It is an entertaining survey of 80 plant genera, with a multitude of references to, and extracts from, myth and literature from Shakespeare to the Victorian language of flowers. Based on prodigious research, it includes much literature that has fallen into undeserved obscurity, as well as selections from the great poets. It is a delightful study of the influence of the world"s flora on humanity, from the mundane to the mystical.