Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: HarperResource
Release Date:  November 4, 2003
ISBN:  0062702319
Awards:  
Format Reviewed:  Hardcover (688 pages)
Buy it at Amazon
Read an Excerpt
Genre:   Nonfiction / Botany / North America
Reviewed: 2003
Reviewer: Brenda Weeaks 
Reviewer Notes:  www.marjorieharris.com

Botanica North America
An Illustrated Guide to Native Plants: Their Botany, Their History, and the Way They Have Shaped Our World
By Marjorie Harris

     Canadian garden writer Marjorie Harris has created an extensive reference book about North American plants, and gone the extra mile with some fascinating information. Harris divided North America into 10 regions - The Easter Forests, Swamps and Wetlands, Florida, The Boreal Forest, The Prairie, The Desert, California, Montane, The Tall Trees, and The Tundra.

     Included in each section is technical plant information, as well as little insights into each plant, such as how the lines on the leaves of the viola lead the bee to the heart of the plant. There are also some wonderful quotes such as one from Walt Whitman's "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing." And some trivia revealing how North American history played in these sections, for instance, how the Pilgrims found themselves in the East Coast forest -- an ecology so complex they felt they had to subdue it instead of celebrating it.

     With 688 pages, Botanica is a big book harboring some wonderful little surprises, just like the forests it covers. Those who wisely invest in Botanica will find their favorite hobby ruling the conversation just by leaving it on a coffee table, open to one of the colorful pages. The photographs in Botanica are beautiful; some so much so that I would consider using them in framed montage for my office wall or on my computer as wallpaper.