By Patrick Butters
Scripps Howard News Service
Flowering Plants of the Neotropics. Edited by staffers at the New York Botanical Garden. Princeton University Press, $75.
Don't be intimidated by this book's doorstop-like 594 pages. Or its snoozer title: Flowering Plants of the Neotropics. There is much to learn and enjoy about the "diverse flora of tropical America," and this exhaustive book will tell you everything you want to know about this diverse collection of foliage.
Of course, this is a reference book, so don't expect a detective story. But as is pointed out, the American tropics have about one-third of the world's known flowering plants. The book clues you into all of the reasons why there are so many as it explores the natural history, economic uses and even tiny details like inflorescences and how the leaves are shaped.
It's not the kind of thing you want to carry into the garden, but it's certainly one you want to run back into the house to consult if you stumble upon, say, that source of flax known as linaceae. According to "Flowering Plants," linaceae is depicted in tomb paintings dating to 3,000 B.C. Its fibers are also used to make fire hoses and for sewing shoes.
Now how many garden paperbacks are going to tell you that much about a plant, plus 495 others?
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