front cover of Field Guide to the Orchids of Europe and the Mediterranean
Field Guide to the Orchids of Europe and the Mediterranean
Rolf Kühn, Henrik Ærenlund Pedersen, and Phillip Cribb
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2024
An updated, comprehensive guide to the orchids of Europe and the Mediterranean region.

Field Guide to the Orchids of Europe and the Mediterranean: Second Edition is a comprehensive photographic guide to the orchids of the region written by leading experts, who between them have decades of orchid field and research experience. The book covers orchids from Europe and the Mediterranean, extending to Turkey and the immediate near east of North Africa and Macaronesia.

Many guides to orchids of this region exist, but in this completely revised second edition, the authors have drawn on the latest scientific research to bring clarity to orchid identification and names, with an emphasis on the natural variability that exists in many wild species. This edition incorporates the latest updates in taxonomy. With over 2000 color photographs and new images, the book provides the reader with an accessible and easy-to-use identification guide to the natural variability seen in these orchids.

The book covers thirty genera and their species including Ophrys, Cypripedium, Orchis, Dactylorhiza, Epipactis, and Serapias, as well as seventy natural hybrids. Much of the confusion over identification is due to the morphological variation a species can have within a habitat and across its distribution, and therefore to simplify identification, several images accompany each species to illustrate this diversity, along with notes on distinguishing features and distribution maps. Each species is also accompanied by common names and important synonyms, as well as notes on habitat, flowering times, and distinguishing features.
 
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Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Canary Islands
Chris Thorogood, Mark Carine, and Alfredo Reyes-Betancourt
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2024
A comprehensive and accessible field guide to the Canary Islands flowers, including a visual guide to flora hotspots to visit.

Situated in the North Atlantic off the coast of northwestern Africa, the Canary Islands are a volcanic archipelago, comprising seven large and several smaller islands. The region attracts millions of visitors every year, with an abundance of ecotourists drawn by its famously rich flora. This book presents previously inaccessible information on the islands through the collaboration of British scientists and local experts.

This long-awaited field guide covers more than two thousand of the region’s exceptionally diverse and important plants, from the most common species to local endemics. Illustrated throughout with color photographs, each species profile includes nomenclature, description, dimensions, habitat, flowering times, and distribution.

With comprehensive, up-to-date coverage sorted by habitat, this is the essential guide for students, professional botanists, scientists, gardeners, and plant enthusiasts alike.
 
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Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Western Alps
France, Italy and Switzerland
Christopher Grey-Wilson
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2025
With comprehensive, up-to-date coverage sorted by habitat, this is the essential guide to the Western Alps for students, professional botanists, scientists, gardeners, and plant-enthusiasts alike.

The Western Alps, a large region of dramatic scenery and varied habitats, is noted for its biodiversity and beauty. From woodlands and forests, through colorful hay meadows, to the higher alpine elevations, the region boasts one of the most diverse and colorful mountain floras found anywhere on earth. This book is a celebration of the great biological diversity found in one of the most beautiful and inviting regions of Europe.

This comprehensive guide features the fascinating flora to be found across the region in the French Alps, the Massif Central and Cevennes, the Swiss Jura Mountains and the Italian Alps east to Como and Bergamo. Illustrated throughout with over 2000 photographs, each species profile includes nomenclature, description, dimensions, habitat, flowering times, and distribution.
 
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Field Guide to the Wildflowers of the Western Mediterranean
Chris Thorogood
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2016
The Western Mediterranean is home to more than 10,000 plant species, which makes it one of the most important regions in the world for biodiversity. This book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to Western Mediterranean wildflowers, covering southern Europe from the Portuguese Algarve to Italy, and Morocco to Tunisia in North Africa, along with all the islands in between. It features 2,500 plants, and its more than 800 line drawings and color photographs make it the ideal companion for field identification.
 
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Field Guide to Wildflowers of Nebraska and the Great Plains
Second Edition
Jon Farrar
University of Iowa Press, 2012
From the mixed-grass prairies of the Panhandle in the west, to the Sandhills prairie and mixed-grass prairies in central Nebraska, to the tallgrass prairies in the east, the state is home to hundreds of wildflower species, yet the primary guide to these flowers has been out of print for almost two decades. Now back in a second edition with updated nomenclature, refined plant descriptions, better photographs where improvements were called for, and a new design, Jon Farrar’s Field Guide to Wildflowers of Nebraska and the Great Plains, originally published by NEBRASKAland magazine and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, is a visual treat and educational guide to some of the region’s showiest and most interesting wildflowers.
 
Organizing species by color, Farrar provides scientific, common, and family names; time of flowering; distribution both for Nebraska specifically and for the Great Plains in general; and preferred habitat including soil type and plant community from roadsides to woodlands to grasslands. Descriptions of each species are succinct and accessible; Farrar packs a surprising amount of information into a compact space. For many species, he includes intriguing notes about edibility, medicinal uses by Native Americans and early pioneers, similar species and varieties, hybridization, and changes in status as plants become uncommon or endangered. Superb color photographs allow each of the 274 wildflowers to be easily identified and pen-and-ink illustrations provide additional details for many species.
 
It is a joy to have this new edition riding along on car seats and in backpacks helping naturalists at all levels of expertise explore prairies, woodlands, and wetlands in search of those ever-changing splashes of color we call wildflowers.
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A Flora of Southern Illinois
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 1974

This book will be of particular interest to those inter­ested in applied fields of biology, such as conservation, forestry, and wild life. The southern twelve counties of Illinois, a total of 4,355square miles, comprise the area covered in this book. It is an area in which both northern and southern flora specimens abound. A wide variety of plant species grow in this area, and nearly 200 new plants not formerly identified with this area have been included in the listings.

Especially valuable to amateur botanists, the book is an important manual in identifying the plants that make up the native scenery of this region. Seventy-seven illustrations aid in identifying and understanding the plant communities.

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Flora Zambesiaca Volume 13 (3) Hyancinthaceae
Edited by Benoit Loeuille
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2023
An authoritative account of Hyancinthaceae.

The Flora Zambesiaca series provides comprehensive descriptive accounts of the flowering plants and ferns native and naturalized in Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and the Caprivi Strip. Volume 14 covers the Hyancinthaceae in its entirety, including detailed plant descriptions and botanical illustrations to aid identification.
 
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Flower Chronicles
E. Buckner Hollingsworth
University of Chicago Press, 2004
First published in 1958, this compendium on the history of flowers has lost almost none of its bloom. With a flair for research and citation, E. Buckner Hollingsworth draws on folklore, poetry, annals of medicine, and gardening manuals to report essential historical information on the domestication of garden favorites before they were grown as ornamental plants. Organized by species, Flower Chronicles brims with literary and historical references, anecdotes, and digressions on the lives of merchants, housewives, perfumers, and surgeons. Though she writes with a light touch, Hollingsworth tackles Greek literature, Shakespeare, De Quincey, and Herrick.

A tremendously entertaining and charming book, not only for its richness of information but because Hollingsworth clearly enjoys her material, Flower Chronicles has an antiquarian feel about it-with line drawings, woodcuts, and translations from the Greek—but the text never feels dated. Out of print for nearly thirty years, Flower Chronicles reemerges as a garden literature classic.

"With humor and literary taste, Mrs. Hollingworth has compiled an astonishing amount of scholarly yet entertaining material from her studies in archaeology and mythology and her researches in ancient pharmacopeias, botanies, cookbooks, herbals, and stillroom books."-New Yorker

"Mrs. Hollingsworth writes gaily and quotes from old books, with a wonderful taste for the curious English of Elizabethan gardeners, and sharp notice of what poets and translators of talent have set down. To this she has added the excitement of discovery of forms not noticed by her predecessors."-New York Herald Tribune Book Review
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Flower Day
A Story of 24 Hours and 24 Floral Lives
Sandra Knapp
University of Chicago Press, 2025
An illustrated hourly guide that spotlights twenty-four flowers as they attract pollinators, resist predators, and survive on our changing planet.

Is it 4 AM or chicory o’clock? In this short book, botanist and award-winning author Sandra Knapp walks us through a day in a global garden. Each chapter of Flower Day introduces a single flower during a single hour, highlighting twenty-four different species from around the world.

Beginning at midnight in the Americas, we spot the long tubular flowers of the moonflower, Ipomoea alba; they attract a frenzy of hawk moths before the dawn arrives and the flowers wither and collapse. As day breaks, dandelions and chicory open their heads—actually made up of many individual flowers tightly packed together—and flies and bees visit to get the energy they need to lay eggs and raise their young. Later, at eight o’clock in the morning, the sun rises over the watery Amazon basin, and we meet the giant waterlily, slowly turning from white to pink and purple. Trapped inside are the beetles who feasted on the flowers during the night. That evening, at seven o’clock, we travel to the Caribbean to smell night-blooming jessamine’s powerful—some may say nauseating—sweet scent. But this member of the nightshade family isn’t just a thing of beauty—it has a reputation as both a poison and invasive species, crowding out endangered native trees. 

For each hour in our flower day, celebrated artist Katie Scott has depicted these scenes with gorgeous pen-and-ink illustrations. Working closely together to narrate and illustrate these unique moments in time, Knapp and Scott have created an engaging read that is a perfect way to spend an hour or two—and a true gift for amateur botanists, gardeners, and anyone who wants to stop and appreciate the flowers.
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Flowering Plants
Asteraceae, Part 1
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 2015

This, the first of three volumes on the aster family planned for the Illustrated Flora of Illinois series, recognizes 388 species in 119 genera, as well as 20 hybrids and 73 lesser taxa. In Asteraceae, Part 1, author Robert Mohlenbrock presents new and historic information in a clear and easy-to-read style. The volume provides an easy-to-use key to the genera and species and a complete description and nomenclatural and habitat notes for each plant, including its usefulness, if applicable. New nomenclatural combinations are shown for several species. The precise illustrations and detailed information allow for the identification of some of the most difficult to identify plants in the state—goldenrods, asters, artemisias, and fleabanes, among others. Includes 128 original illustrations by Paul Nelson.

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Flowering Plants
Asteraceae, Part 2
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 2019
In this second volume on the aster family, botanist Robert H. Mohlenbrock recognizes 133 species in 42 genera, as well as 7 hybrids and 29 lesser taxa. Flowering Plants: Asteraceae, Part 2 provides an easy-to-use key to the genera and species and a complete description and nomenclatural and habitat notes for each plant, including its usefulness, if applicable. The book details the most important features of the species and includes common, locally used names. Synonyms that have been applied to species and lesser taxa in Illinois are given for each species.
 
In addition, Mohlenbrock has identified the overall range for each species in Illinois, compiled from various sources, including examinations of herbarium material and Mohlenbrock’s own field studies. The range is given from the northeastern to the northwestern extremities, south to the southwestern limit, and then eastward to the southeastern limit. 
 
As important to amateurs interested in wildflower identification as to botanists and land planners, this second volume of Mohlenbrock’s Asteraceae is an essential addition to the esteemed Illustrated Flora of Illinois series.
 
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Flowering Plants
Asteraceae, Part 3
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 2017
Flowering Plants: Asteraceae, Part 3 is the third and final volume in botanist Robert H. Mohlenbrock’s comprehensive sequence of books on the aster family in Illinois. In this volume, Mohlenbrock identifies 128 species in 49 genera with 11 hybrids and 57 lesser taxa. He provides an easy-to-use key to the genera and species and a complete description and nomenclatural and habitat notes for each plant, including its uses, if applicable. The book details the most important features of the species and includes common, locally used names. Synonyms that have been applied to species and lesser taxa in Illinois are given under each species.

In addition, Mohlenbrock has identified the overall range for each species in Illinois, compiled from various sources, including examinations of herbarium material and Mohlenbrock’s own field studies. The overall range for each species is given from the northeastern to the northwestern extremities, south to the southwestern limit, then eastward to the southeastern limit.

As important to amateurs interested in wildflower identification as to professional botanists and land planners, this last volume of Mohlenbrock’s Asteraceae is an essential addition to the esteemed Illustrated Flora of Illinois series.
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Flowering Plants
Basswoods to Spurges
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 1982

This is the fourth volume in The Illustrated Flora of Illinois devoted to dicotyledons, or dicot plants. Dicots are the greatest group of flowering plants, exceeding the monocotyle­dons, or monocots. Dicots produce a pair of seed leaves during germination while monocots produce only a single seed leaf.

This volume contains four orders and ten families of dicots. The orders included in this volume are Malvales, Urticales, Rhamnales, and Euphorbiales. Within the Malvales are the families Tiliaceae, Sterculiaceae, and Mal­vaceae. The families Ulmaceae, Moraceae, and Urticaceae comprise the Urticales. Rhamnaceae and Elaeagnaceae make up the Rhamnales. The Euphorbiales include only the Thymelaeceae and the Euphorbiaceae.

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The Flowering Plants
Flowering Rush to Rushes
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 2006

The second edition of Flowering Plants: Flowering Rush to Rushes offers new material, including a preface, seventeen new illustrations of the additional species now known from Illinois, a revised list of illustrations, and an appendix of the additions and changes since 1970 in the identification, classification, and location of the plants included in the first edition. This new edition of the first volume in the multi-volume series of The Illustrated Flora of Illinois—which provides a working reference for the identification and classification of these plant forms in the state—includes flowering rushes, arrowheads, pondweeds, naiads, duckweeds, cattails, bur reeds, spiderworts, and rushes.

In his introduction, Robert H. Mohlenbrock defines terms and procedures used in the identification and classification of this group of flowering plants referred to as monocotyledons—plants that produce upon germination a single cotyledon or seed-leaf and are often identified by their tall, slender, grass-like leaves. He outlines the life histories and morphologies of the representative monocots and illustrates the plants’ habits and frequencies in Illinois.

Geared to the amateur as well as the professional botanist, the volume includes a glossary of definitions and identification keys to classify the plants according to order, family, genus, and species. The identifying characteristics of each descending class are also given in detail. The morphology of each species is outlined along with data on frequency of occurrence, related soil and climate conditions, and history of past collections. Among the 125 illustrations are detailed sketches of the important features of each species and maps indicating the geographical locations of each species in Illinois.

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Flowering Plants
Lilies to Orchids
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 1970

A continuation of “The Illustrated Flora of Illinois” series, this volume features Illinois flowering plants. This series is designed to provide a working reference for the identification and classification of all the plant forms found in the state. This series is the first of its kind, as no other study of this sort has been undertaken in any other state, and as such, is an unparalleled contribution to its field.

In his introduction to this volume, Mr. Mohlenbrock discusses some of the terms and procedures used in the identification and classification of the plants. He outlines the life histories and morphologies of some of the representative monocots, and also illustrates some of their habits and frequencies in Illinois. Since these volumes are meant to be used by the amateur as well as the professional botanist, the methods and terms used in the text are explained. The directions for the use of the various identification keys are given so that even the novice plant lover will be able to identify the species encountered. For the uninitiated, a glossary is provided which gives definitions for all terms that might be unfamiliar.

All necessary aids to identification are included in the text itself. The identification keys make it initially possible to classify the plants according to order, family, genus and finally, species and the identifying characteristics of each descending class are given in detail. The morphology of each species is outlined, along with data on frequency of occurrence, related soil and climate conditions and history of past collections, and history of past collections. An illustration showing the more important features of the species in detail is included with the description, as well as a map indicating its geographical locations in Illinois.

This book will be invaluable to students, teachers and professionals; particularly those who are interested in observing the plants in their natural habitat. Those who use it will find it possible to obtain a broad view of changing plant forms as they relate to soil and climate variations throughout the state. And it will provide a delightful diversion for all who enjoy viewing beautiful forms in nature. A walk through the forest will become an opportunity for discovery and appreciation.

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Flowering Plants
Magnolias to Pitcher Plants
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 1981

This volume, the eighth devoted to flowering plants in the Illus­trated Flora of Illinois series, is the third of several devoted to dicotyledons, which include such well-known plants as roses, peas, mustards, mints, nightshades, milkweeds, and asters. Mohlenbrock here represents four orders (Annonales, Berberidales, Nymphaeales, and Sarraceniales) and fifteen families of plants. As in previous volumes in this series, the common names are those used locally in Illinois. An illustration of each species depicts the distinguishing features and the habitat in Illinois.

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Flowering Plants
Nightshades to Mistletoe
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 1990

This sixth volume of dicots contains three orders and eight families. The orders included are Solanales, Campanulales, and Santalales. Within the Solanales are the families Solanaceae, Convolvulaceae, Cuscutaceae, and Polemoniaceae. The Campanulales contain only the family Campanulaceae. The Santalales include the families Celastraceae, Santalaceae, and Viscaceae. As with each volume in this series Mohlenbrock includes a complete plant description, illustrations showing diagnostic features, distribution maps, and ecological notes.

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Flowering Plants
Pokeweeds, Four-o'clocks, Carpetweeds, Cacti, Purslanes, Goosefoots, Pigweeds, and Pinks
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 2001

Robert H. Mohlenbrock provides a definitive account of the pokeweed, four-o'clock, carpetweed, cactus, purslane, goosefoot, pigweed, and pink families in Illinois.

Flowering Plants: Pokeweeds, Four-o’clocks, Carpetweeds, Cacti, Purslanes, Goosefoots, Pigweeds, and Pinks is the fifteenth volume of the Illustrated Flora of Illinois series and the ninth devoted to dicots, or plants that have two seed-leaves, or cotyledons, upon germination. Each of the 141 plants is beautifully illustrated by Paul W. Nelson.

Nelson shows the full habitat of the plant and close-ups of various vegetative and reproductive structures that are crucial for the identification of individual species. Each illustration includes detailed drawings of the flowers, fruits, and seeds of the plant covered. Mohlenbrock provides a complete description of each species as well as a discussion of the nomenclature and habitats, and his fifty-three years of experience enable him to present little-known diagnostic features for many species. Range maps show the county distribution of each species in Illinois. Mohlenbrock includes a statement giving the overall range of each species in the United States as well as a detailed key for the identification of the species.

Flowering Plants contains many plants whose obscure flower parts make them exceedingly difficult to identify. The close-up illustrations of these parts will aid the user of the book immensely in identification of the species. Included are several species previously unknown in Illinois.

New illustrations, which include detailed drawings of the flowers, fruits, and seeds are presented for each species covered in this book. Mohlenbrock’s fifty-three years of experience enable him to present little-known diagnostic features for many species.
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Flowering Plants
Willows to Mustards
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 1980

This eighth volume in the comprehen­sive Illustrated Flora of Illinois series is the seventh volume devoted to flowering plants (the eighth volume is devoted to ferns) and the second treating dicotyledons, which include such well-known plants as roses, peas, mustards, mints, nightshades, milkweeds, and asters. The previous volume on dicots, Flower­ing Plants: Hollies to Loasas, was pub­lished in 1978.

In the present volume, Mohlenbrock includes three orders of vascular plants encompassing five families. The orders are Salicales and Tamaricales, of the Salicaceae and Tamaricaceae families, and Capparidales, of the Capparidaceae, Re­sedaceae, and Brassicaceae families. In all, 44 genera and 117species are treat­ed in this volume, each species illustrat­ed in detail.

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Flowers as Mind Control
poems
Laura Minor
BkMk Press, 2021
This book, which was selected by poet John Hodgen for the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, ranges across rural Florida and Georgia as well as Los Angeles and New York City, include considerations of homesickness, memory, music, alcohol, love, and loss. With a voice at once inquisitive and prescient, Minor meditates on consumption, vice, homesickness, memory, family, and the landscape. Minor’s writing is unerringly lyric and blooming with elegant charm and keen description. This book is an alchemy of fortitude in the face of despair and all the transformative possibility that comes with the hope for a better future.
 
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Flowers, Guns, and Money
Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism
Lindsay Schakenbach Regele
University of Chicago Press, 2023
A fascinating historical account of a largely forgotten statesman, who pioneered a form of patriotism that left an indelible mark on the early United States.

Joel Roberts Poinsett’s (17791851) brand of self-interested patriotism illuminates the paradoxes of the antebellum United States.  He was a South Carolina investor and enslaver, a confidant of Andrew Jackson, and a secret agent in South America who fought surreptitiously in Chile’s War for Independence. He was an ambitious Congressman and Secretary of War who oversaw the ignominy of the Trail of Tears and orchestrated America’s longest and costliest war against Native Americans, yet also helped found the Smithsonian. In addition, he was a naturalist, after whom the poinsettia—which he appropriated while he was serving as the first US ambassador to Mexico—is now named.
 
As Lindsay Schakenbach Regele shows in Flowers, Guns, and Money, Poinsett personified a type of patriotism that emerged following the American Revolution, one in which statesmen served the nation by serving themselves, securing economic prosperity and military security while often prioritizing their own ambitions and financial interests. Whether waging war, opposing states’ rights yet supporting slavery, or pushing for agricultural and infrastructural improvements in his native South Carolina, Poinsett consistently acted in his own self-interest. By examining the man and his actions, Schakenbach Regele reveals an America defined by opportunity and violence, freedom and slavery, and nationalism and self-interest.
 
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Flowers, Guns, and Money
Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism
Lindsay Schakenbach Regele
University of Chicago Press, 2023
This is an auto-narrated audiobook version of this book.

A fascinating historical account of a largely forgotten statesman, who pioneered a form of patriotism that left an indelible mark on the early United States.


Joel Roberts Poinsett’s (17791851) brand of self-interested patriotism illuminates the paradoxes of the antebellum United States.  He was a South Carolina investor and enslaver, a confidant of Andrew Jackson, and a secret agent in South America who fought surreptitiously in Chile’s War for Independence. He was an ambitious Congressman and Secretary of War who oversaw the ignominy of the Trail of Tears and orchestrated America’s longest and costliest war against Native Americans, yet also helped found the Smithsonian. In addition, he was a naturalist, after whom the poinsettia—which he appropriated while he was serving as the first US ambassador to Mexico—is now named.
 
As Lindsay Schakenbach Regele shows in Flowers, Guns, and Money, Poinsett personified a type of patriotism that emerged following the American Revolution, one in which statesmen served the nation by serving themselves, securing economic prosperity and military security while often prioritizing their own ambitions and financial interests. Whether waging war, opposing states’ rights yet supporting slavery, or pushing for agricultural and infrastructural improvements in his native South Carolina, Poinsett consistently acted in his own self-interest. By examining the man and his actions, Schakenbach Regele reveals an America defined by opportunity and violence, freedom and slavery, and nationalism and self-interest.
 
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Flowers in the Dustbin
Culture, Anarchy, and Postwar England
Neil Nehring
University of Michigan Press, 1993
Flowers in the Dustbin looks at the volatile relations between literature, rock music, and youth subcultures in postwar England. Neil Nehring traces the continuities between the original avant-garde of the twenties and thirties and the postwar youth culture, arguing that anarchism never really disappeared from the world. The author shows that British youth groups like the Mods, the Rockers, Punks, and Teddy Boys and the music that inspired them appear increasingly more acute than their literary counterparts, belying conventional assumptions about the relative powers of "high" and "low" culture. By examining literary texts as part of a larger sampling of cultural forms and their uses in everyday life, Flowers in the Dustbin provides a striking illustration of the significance the field of cultural studies holds for studies in English.
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The Flowers of Tarbes
or, Terror in Literature
Jean Paulhan
University of Illinois Press, 2005

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Fountains, Statues, and Flowers
Studies in Italian Gardens of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Elizabeth Blair MacDougall
Harvard University Press, 1994

The essays in this volume focus on the different aspects of Italian gardens of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This volume is divided into two parts, with the first part concentrating on the decorations in Roman gardens of the sixteenth centuries, especially the fountains and statue collections, their iconographic programs, and their relationship to contemporary and ancient literature.

The second half of the volume considers two particular sites. The first, a Savoy duke’s villa, is considered through the history of its construction and its relationship to contemporary festivity architecture. The second essay considers a secret garden at the Palazzo Barberini in the 1630s. Also included are illustrations and text from three Barberini manuscripts documenting the plants used in this garden.

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Four Seasons of Flowers
A Selection of Botanical Illustrations from the Rare Book Collection at Dumbarton Oaks
Linda Lott
Harvard University Press
Four Seasons of Flowers is an illustrated volume that presents a selection of the manuscripts, herbals, and printed botanical texts from the Rare Book Collection at Dumbarton Oaks. Representing pivotal works in the intellectual history of Europe from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, these drawings, books, and manuscripts are among the most significant materials conserved in the Rare Book Reading Room. They offer an illuminating overview of the history of botany as a modern science, from its inception to the present day. Each text is accompanied by a remarkable set of botanical illustrations. Their scientific accuracy and aesthetic beauty testify to the importance of the visual image once the efficacy of the printing press as an instrument for the furtherance of knowledge in the sciences and technology—from anatomy to zoology and from astronomy to botany—had been fully recognized. Botanical illustrations constitute an indispensable source of information for historians of not only botanical sciences but also garden and landscape architecture, thus shedding light on the study of plants in different periods, as well as on the evolution of the visual arts in areas where the representation of the plant world played a central role.
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Fringed Orchids in Your Pocket
A Guide to Native Platanthera Species of the Continental United States and Canada
Paul Martin Brown
University of Iowa Press, 2009
Native orchids are increasingly threatened by pressure from population growth and development but, nonetheless, still present a welcome surprise to observant hikers in every state and province. Compiled and illustrated by long-time orchid specialist Paul Martin Brown, this pocket guide to the fringed orchids forms part of a series that will cover all the wild orchids of the continental United States and Canada.

Brown provides a description, general distributional information, time of flowering, and habitat requirements for each species as well as a complete list of hybrids and the many different growth and color forms that can make identifying orchids so challenging. For the fringed-lipped orchids, which make up some of the most intriguing and richly colored of all wild orchids, he includes information on fourteen species and thirteen hybrids.

The genus Platanthera is the largest genus of orchids to be found in North America north of Mexico; the fringe-lipped group is found primarily in the eastern U.S. and Canada, extending west to the prairies and Great Plains. The fringed orchids, so-called because of the delicately fringed petals and lips on many of the species, comprise some of the largest and showiest native orchids found in our region. Most of these species are easy to identify based upon their general appearance, range, and time of flowering. Answering three simple questions—when, where, and how does it grow?—and comparing the living plants with the striking photos in the backpack-friendly laminated guide and the information in the simple key should enable both professional and amateur naturalists to achieve the satisfaction of identifying a specific orchid.
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