[pbs] Bulbs of North America/ Amianthium muscaetoxicum
Mary Sue Ittner
msittner at mcn.org
Thu Jun 19 10:33:35 EDT 2008
I'd like to join Max in the praise of this book Jane edited. It's one of
the books I regularly consult. It's divided in sections written by 13
contributors, experts on either a genus or an area. So the treatment is
slightly different depending on who wrote each section. Reading the list of
contributors you will recognize many of the names as some of these people
have written other books, published articles, or given talks. Sadly even
though this book was published in 2001, some of the contributors are no
longer alive. It's a wonderful combination of botanical information written
in language that doesn't require having several dictionaries by your side
so you can understand what has been written (if you are a gardener, not a
botanist or a taxonomist) and also has helpful cultivation information.
You don't always get both. And I know of no other book that pulls this all
together for bulbs native to North America. Sure I would have liked to have
had more pictures and it would have been nice to have pictures with the
plants, but they needed to publish the book at a price that was low enough
that it would sell.
Contents:
Foreword -- Brian Mathew
Introduction -- Jane McGary
The Genus Allium -- Mark McDonough, Jim Robinnett, and Georgie Robinett
Amaryllidaceae of North America -- Alan W. Meerow
The Brodiaea Alliance: Bloomeria, Brodiaea, Dichelostemma, and Triteleia --
Parker Sanderson and Jane McGary
The Genus Calochortus -- Frank Callahan
The Genus Erythronium -- Molly M. Grothaus
The Genus Fritillaria -- David King
Irids of the Southeast -- Michael E. Chelednik
The Genus Lilium -- Edward Austin McRae
Bulbs of the Northwest -- Loren Russell
Bulbs of the Southwest -- Mary Irish
Bulbs of Eastern North America -- C. Colston Burrell
Looking up the bulb Jay just added to the wiki, Amianthium muscaetoxicum,
you find a half page written about it in this book describing the states of
the USA where it is found, the habitat it is found in, what it looks like,
and when it blooms. It then describes how to grow it, what plants might
make good companions to plant with it and how to propagate it. Jay and I
noticed that different sources spell the species name differently, but this
one conforms to the one he used as the first one on the wiki.
Mary Sue
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