Review by Choice Review
This lavishly illustrated coffee-table book combines an introduction to the entire plant kingdom with the Missouri Botanical Garden story, including the Garden's history, an overview of its current plant collections, and its research program. Established by St. Louis philanthropist Henry Shaw in 1859, the Missouri Botanical Garden is one of a handful of world-class US public gardens. From an academic viewpoint, the book suffers from trying to be three things at once: a glossy, visually appealing souvenir for Garden visitors; a serious summary of the science of botany; and a treatment of the Garden's history and research program. Most libraries do not need the first and have other, more comprehensive sources for the second. The Garden's importance is such that libraries serving undergraduates will consider acquiring the book for the history and research chapters alone. -G. D. Dreyer, Connecticut College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Boldly presented here are more than 150 photographs--125 in magnificent color--of the 79-acre Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. A selection of essays--one on the botanical world by the garden's assistant director, another on philanthropist Henry Shaw and the foundation of the garden (which was inaugurated in the mid-1850s), and two on particular aspects of the garden itself--serve as textual accompaniment. This remarkable sanctuary boasts an English woodland garden, a rock garden, two rose gardens, a scented garden for the blind, a 14-acre Japanese garden, a 70-foot-high geodesic dome housing 1,400 species of tropical plants, a daylily garden of 600 cultivars, a prairie garden, an iris garden, a dry stream garden, and outdoor sculptures by Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, and Carl Milles. Correlatively, the book itself is a sheer delight. Index. --George Cohen
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
