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Until the nineteenth century, the investigation of natural phenomena, plants and animals was considered either the preserve of elite scholars or a pastime for the leisured upper classes. As increasing academic rigour and systematisation was brought to the study of 'natural history', its subdisciplines were adopted into university curricula, and learned societies (such as the Royal Horticultural Society, founded in 1804) were established to support research in these areas. A related development was strong enthusiasm for exotic garden plants, which resulted in plant collecting expeditions to every corner of the globe, sometimes with tragic consequences. This series includes accounts of some of those expeditions, detailed reference works on the flora of different regions, and practical advice for amateur and professional gardeners.

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222 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Botany and Horticulture

Page 2 of 12

Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden
  • Maria Theresa Villiers Earle
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    18 December 2014
    First published in:
    1897
  • Mrs C. W. Earle (1836–1925) was born into the minor aristocracy as Maria Theresa Villiers. After training as an artist, she married Captain C. W. Earle, who inherited family property which enabled a comfortable lifestyle with a town house in London and a small property with a large garden in Surrey. Earle's designs for her garden were much admired by her artistic and literary circle, and she was encouraged to write down her gardening advice. With the help of her niece, Lady Constance Lytton (who provides an appendix on Japanese flower arranging), she published this book, the first of three, in 1897, and it was a great and immediate success. The reader is addressed directly and engagingly on topics ranging from gardening and cookery books to planting schemes, healthy recipes, interior decoration, and the rearing of boys and girls, together with plenty of practical advice on all aspects of gardening.

A Synopsis of the British Flora
  • Arranged According to the Natural Orders
  • John Lindley
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    05 March 2015
    First published in:
    1829
  • The botanist and horticulturalist John Lindley (1799–1865) worked for Sir Joseph Banks, and was later instrumental in saving the Royal Horticultural Society from financial disaster. He was a prolific author of works for gardening practitioners but also for a non-specialist readership, and many of his books have been reissued in this series. This 1829 work is a classification of British plants using the 'natural' system of the French botanist Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, which Lindley firmly supported, believing that the Linnaean system was both inaccurate and had 'almost disappeared from every country but our own'. Lindley describes genera and species in English, but using a uniform, standard vocabulary, and gives the alternative Latin names proposed by taxonomists including Smith, Curtis, Linnaeus, and the Hortus Kewensis. He also offers tables showing the components of each genus, and substantial indexes giving both Latin and English common names of the plants discussed.

A Garden of Pleasure
  • Eleanor Vere Boyle
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    05 March 2015
    First published in:
    1895
  • Eleanor Vere Boyle (1825–1916), who re-created the gardens of Huntercombe Manor in Berkshire in the 1870s, was a talented artist as well as an author, illustrating both poetry and books for children. Coming from an aristocratic family, and in later life a friend of Queen Alexandra, she produced sketches and watercolours admired by Ruskin and Landseer, and Tennyson and Bulwer Lytton contributed to her anthologies of poetry. One of a number of late nineteenth-century female writers on gardens (many of whose works have been reissued in this series), she was interested in the natural history of the garden rather than in botanical principles. This work, published in 1895, describes the sights, sounds and smells of her garden through the seasons of 1894, with frequent digressions on the weather, birds and animals, the folklore connected with individual plants, literary references, and observations on other gardens visited, in both Britain and Europe.

Old Time Gardens, Newly Set Forth
  • A Book of the Sweet o' the Year
  • Alice Morse Earle
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    18 December 2014
    First published in:
    1902
  • The American social historian and antiquarian Alice Morse Earle (1851–1911) published this work in 1901. She was a prolific writer of books and pamphlets on pre-revolutionary New England, and her writings were very popular with readers who took great interest in the social history and material culture of their country. In this work, which contains more than 200 illustrations, Earle describes the historic and modern gardens of the north-eastern seaboard, the gardening activities - for pleasure as well as for food - of early settlers, and the progress of plant-hunters and nursery-men such as John Bartram in discovering and categorising new specimens, as well as the introduction into the United States of cottage garden favourites from Europe and exotica from the Far East. Earle's Sundials and Roses of Yesterday (1902) is also reissued in this series.

London Parks and Gardens
  • Alicia Amherst
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    18 December 2014
    First published in:
    1907
  • Brought up among the extensive grounds of her family home at Didlington Hall in Norfolk, Alicia Amherst (1865–1941) was a keen gardener from an early age. Especially interested in socially beneficial gardening, she sat on the board of the Chelsea Physic Garden from 1900, encouraged the growing of smoke-resistant flowers in poor urban areas, and promoted the greater use of allotments and school gardens during the First World War. Long regarded as a significant work for its thorough yet accessible approach, this well-researched historical and horticultural survey first appeared in 1907 under her married name of the Honourable Mrs Evelyn Cecil. Beautifully illustrated throughout, it covers London's royal and other parks as well as less obvious green spaces such as squares, burial grounds, and Inns of Court. A map and plant lists are also included. Amherst's History of Gardening in England (1895) is also reissued in this series.

In a Yorkshire Garden
  • Reginald John Farrer
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    03 October 2011
    First published in:
    1909
  • Reginald J. Farrer (1880–1920) was a horticulturalist and plant finder who made a lasting contribution to British gardening, the rockery designs for which he is best known having been greatly influenced by those he discovered in Asia. First published in 1909, this study eloquently describes the author's own garden and its surrounding countryside in his home town of Clapham, Yorkshire. Focusing on the early spring, Farrer reveals through figurative prose the awakening of the flowers and shrubs, the character of the garden as winter disappears, and the aesthetics inherent to the natural world. The study shows his passion for horticulture, and his dedication to an aesthetic that led him to influence generations of gardeners. Featuring an extensive index of plant names and illustrated with photographs taken by the author, it is as informative as it is descriptive, and offers a wealth of anecdotal advice that remains of great interest.

Botany for Ladies
  • Or, A Popular Introduction to the Natural System of Plants, According to the Classification of De Candolle
  • Jane Loudon
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015
    First published in:
    1842
  • Jane Loudon (1807–58), the Mrs Beeton of the Victorian gardening world, wrote several popular books on horticulture and botany specifically for women. Her enthusiasm for plants and gardening was encouraged by her husband, the landscape designer John Claudius Loudon, whom she married in 1830. Her Instructions in Gardening for Ladies (also reissued in this series) was enormously successful, and she followed it up in 1842 with this volume on botany, in which she uses the natural system of classification. The 'grand object' of the work is 'to enable my readers to find out the name of a plant when they see it … or, if they hear or read the name … to make that name intelligible to them'. She takes her readers through the botanical orders, using a familiar plant as an exemplar for each, and then presents de Candolle's systematic description of plant species.

A Third Pot-Pourri
  • Maria Theresa Villiers Earle
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    18 December 2014
    First published in:
    1903
  • Mrs C. W. Earle (1836–1925) was born into the minor aristocracy as Maria Theresa Villiers. After training as an artist, she married Captain C. W. Earle, who inherited family property which enabled a comfortable lifestyle with a town house in London and a small property with a large garden in Surrey. Earle's designs for her garden were much admired by her artistic and literary circle, and she was encouraged to write down her gardening advice. In 1903 she published this work, the third in a very successful series of writings about gardening, cookery, travel and art, but the emphasis in this book is very much on the importance of diet to health, though there are plenty of other topics. The final section of the book contains the last letters home of Mrs Earle's son Sydney, a captain in the Coldstream Guards, who was killed late in 1899 during the Boer War.

Ladies' Botany
  • Or, a Familiar Introduction to the Study of the Natural System of Botany
  • Volume 2
  • John Lindley
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    05 March 2015
    First published in:
    1837
  • The horticulturalist John Lindley (1799–1865) worked for Sir Joseph Banks, and was later instrumental in saving the Royal Horticultural Society from financial disaster. He was a prolific author of works for gardening practitioners but also for a non-specialist readership, and many of his books have been reissued in this series. The first volume of this two-volume work was published in 1834, and the second in 1837. At a time when botany was regarded as the only science suitable for study by women and girls, Lindley felt that there was a lack of books for 'those who would become acquainted with Botany as an amusement and a relaxation', and attempted to meet this need. In the second volume of 'this little work', Lindley continues to introduce new 'tribes' of plants, including exotica such as mangoes and Venus fly traps, to his lady correspondent and her children.

A History of Garden Art
  • From the Earliest Times to the Present Day
  • Volume 2
  • Marie Luise Schroeter Gothein
  • Edited by Walter P. Wright
  • Translated by Laura Archer-Hind
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    11 September 2014
    First published in:
    1928
  • Marie Luise Gothein (1863–1931) published this scholarly two-volume history of garden design in German in 1913. Its second edition of 1925 was translated into English by Laura Archer-Hind, edited by gardening author Walter P. Wright (1864–1940), and published in 1928. The highly illustrated work is still regarded as among the most thorough and important surveys of its kind. It begins by examining evidence from both archaeology and literature, as well as climate and soil conditions, to discuss the gardens of ancient Egypt and Assyria, and continues to survey developments worldwide until the twentieth century. Individual gardens, technical innovations, and fashions in horticulture are all discussed in detail. Volume 2 considers northern European gardens of the Renaissance, the cultural importance of Louis XIV's France, the impact of the introduction of foreign plants, and gardening in Europe, the Far East and North America up to the early twentieth century.

A History of Garden Art
  • From the Earliest Times to the Present Day
  • Volume 1
  • Marie Luise Schroeter Gothein
  • Edited by Walter P. Wright
  • Translated by Laura Archer-Hind
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    11 September 2014
    First published in:
    1928
  • Marie Luise Gothein (1863–1931) published this scholarly two-volume history of garden design in German in 1913. Its second edition of 1925 was translated into English by Laura Archer-Hind, edited by gardening author Walter P. Wright (1864–1940), and published in 1928. The highly illustrated work is still regarded as among the most thorough and important surveys of its kind. It begins by examining evidence from both archaeology and literature, as well as climate and soil conditions, to discuss the gardens of ancient Egypt and Assyria, and continues to survey developments worldwide until the twentieth century. Individual gardens, technical innovations, and fashions in horticulture are all discussed in detail. Volume 1 surveys the ancient civilisations of the Near East, Greece and Rome, discusses Byzantine and Islamic gardens, and the importance of monastery gardens in western Europe, and ends with a review of gardening in Europe during the Renaissance.

Planting and Rural Ornament
  • Being a Second Edition, with Large Additions, of Planting and Ornamental Gardening: A Practical Treatise
  • Volume 1
  • William Marshall
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    26 March 2015
    First published in:
    1796
  • William Marshall (1745–1818), an experienced farmer and land agent, published this work in 1795, and early in 1796 produced a second edition (reissued here), 'with large additions'. The two-volume work was intended as a practical guide for the owners or managers of large estates on how to establish and maintain timber plantations, both for their financial value and also as important decorative elements in the landscaping of the surroundings of the owner's house. The work covers the practical issues of planting, propagating and transplanting, and discusses the choice of trees for different commercial purposes, and the planning and maintenance of hedgerows, as well as ornamental buildings. Volume 1 includes a review of the writings on landscape by such figures as Horace Walpole, (one of whose essays is reproduced), giving insights into the economic as well as the aesthetic aspects of landscape gardening in its golden age.

Sweet's Hortus Britannicus
  • Or, a Catalogue of Plants, Indigenous, or Cultivated in the Gardens of Great Britain, Arranged According to their Natural Orders
  • Robert Sweet
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    05 March 2015
    First published in:
    1830
  • The first career of Robert Sweet (1783–1835) was as a gardener in private employment and as a nurseryman. He turned in 1826 to botanical writing, having already published Hortus suburbanus Londinensis (1818), and the first of the five-volume Geraniaceae (1820–30). The first edition of this work was published in 1826, and this revised second edition in 1830. Sweet uses Jussieu's 'natural' system of classification, but concedes that 'we still consider the addition of the Linnaean classes and orders, of great use, as they are so readily attained by the young Botanist'. He provides nine two-column closely packed pages of source works in which images of the plants cited in this unillustrated work can be found, and which also testify to the breadth of his own research in producing a reference work which is comprehensive as a record of plants then growing and flowering in British gardens.

The Natural History of the Tea-Tree
  • With Observations on the Medical Qualities of Tea, and Effects of Tea-Drinking
  • John Coakley Lettsom
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    05 March 2015
    First published in:
    1772
  • This treatise on the tea bush and the consumption of tea was published in 1772 by John Coakley Lettsom (1744–1815), a physician and philanthropist, whose first action on inheriting his family plantation in 1767 was to free all its slaves. He practised medicine in London, and wrote on topics which he felt would benefit society. The book begins with a description of the plant, using the Linnaean system, discussing tea cultivation and harvesting in China, and the preparation of the leaves for use locally and abroad. In Part II, Lettsom turns to the medical uses of tea, lamenting that so little scientific evidence exists for either its beneficent or its malign properties. After performing various experiments and considering the physical and social consequences of tea-drinking, he concludes that it should be avoided, because its enervating effects lead to weakness and effeminacy, advice which mostly fell on deaf ears.

The Naturalist's and Traveller's Companion
  • John Coakley Lettsom
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015
    First published in:
    1799
  • First published in 1772 and reissued here in its 1799 third edition, this work was intended to provide the traveller with advice on collecting and preserving scientific specimens, and on pursuing intellectual investigations. John Coakley Lettsom (1744–1815) was a physician and philanthropist, and on inheriting his family plantation in 1767, his first action was to free all its slaves. He practised medicine in the West Indies and in London, and wrote on topics which he felt would benefit society. This book is divided into two parts, the first describing methods of forming collections of insects, birds and animals, seeds and plants, and minerals. The second part suggests the sorts of questions and enquiries the traveller should ask about the writings, culture, religion, history and natural history of the lands he is visiting. This offers a fascinating insight into the approach and expectations of the educated traveller in the eighteenth century.

The Gentleman Farmer
  • Being an Attempt to Improve Agriculture by Subjecting it to the Test of Rational Principles
  • Henry Home, Lord Kames
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    18 December 2014
    First published in:
    1776
  • Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782) gained recognition as an advocate at the Scottish bar, and subsequently as a judge whose writings on the philosophy, theory and practice of the law were hugely influential. However, he also took great interest in agriculture, and his wife's inheritance of a large estate in 1766 particularly focused his energies. The first edition of this work, published in 1776, rapidly became popular: reissued here is the enlarged second edition of 1779. Kames makes it clear that 'there never was in Scotland a period more favourable to agriculture than the present'. He begins with necessary equipment and moves on to describe the preparation of the ground, and the appropriate crops to grow for feeding to humans or cattle. This thoroughly practical work ends with an appendix in which the 'imperfection of Scotch husbandry' and a proposal for 'a board for improving agriculture' are discussed.

The Forest Trees of Britain
  • Volume 1
  • Charles Alexander Johns
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    20 February 2014
  • A keen collector and sketcher of plant specimens from an early age, the author, educator and clergyman Charles Alexander Johns (1811–74) gained recognition for his popular books on British plants, trees, birds and countryside walks. Flowers of the Field (1851), one of several works originally published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, is also reissued in this series. First published by the Society between 1847 and 1849, this two-volume botanical guide for amateur enthusiasts focuses on the trees found in British woodland. Johns describes each species, noting also pests and diseases, uses for the wood, and associated myths and legends. The work is noteworthy for its meticulous engravings of leaves, seeds and blossom, and of the trees in natural settings. Volume 1 (1847) provides an introduction to the botanical terms used. The species covered in this volume include oak, ash, beech and poplar.

Handbook of the New Zealand Flora
  • A Systematic Description of the Native Plants of New Zealand and the Chatham, Kermadec's, Lord Auckland's, Campbell's, and Macquarrie's Islands
  • Volume 2
  • Joseph Dalton Hooker
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    17 April 2011
    First published in:
    1867
  • Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911), botanist, explorer, and director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, is chiefly remembered as a close friend and colleague of Darwin, his publications on geographical distribution of plants supporting Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. In 1839 Hooker became an assistant surgeon on HMS Erebus during Ross' Antarctic expedition. The boat wintered along the New Zealand coast, Tasmania and the Falkland Islands, enabling Hooker to collect over 700 plant species. Drawing heavily on Hooker's illustrated Flora Novae Zelandiae (1854–1855), this two-volume work (1864–1867) contains a comprehensive list of New Zealand plant species as well as those of the Chatham, Kermadec, Auckland, Campbell and Macquarrie Islands. As the first major study of New Zealand flora, Hooker's handbook remained the authority on the subject for half a century. Volume 2 continues Hooker's meticulous description and categorization of New Zealand flora.

The English Flower Garden
  • Style, Position, and Arrangement
  • William Robinson
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    24 November 2011
    First published in:
    1883
  • An Irish-born gardener and writer, William Robinson (1838–1935) travelled widely to study gardens and gardening in Europe and America. He founded a weekly illustrated periodical, The Garden, in 1871, which he owned until 1919, and published numerous books on different aspects of horticulture. Topics included annuals, hardy perennials, alpines and subtropical plants, as well as accounts of his travels. This book, his most famous work, was first published in 1883, and fifteen editions were issued in his lifetime. It has been described as 'the most widely read and influential gardening book ever written'. Aimed at both amateurs and experienced gardeners, it sets out clearly the different types of plant suitable for each type of situation, and how to grow them. Robinson advocated a revolution in garden design, rejecting the more formal flower-beds which had long been popular in favour of a more natural and individual style.

Flora Australiensis
  • A Description of the Plants of the Australian Territory
  • Volume 3, Myrtaceae to Compositae
  • George Bentham, Ferdinand von Mueller
  • Published online:
    05 February 2015
    Print publication:
    08 December 2011
    First published in:
    1866
  • George Bentham (1800–84) was one of Britain's most influential botanists, whose own collection of plant specimens numbered more than 100,000. Although he donated his herbarium to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1854, he continued to make significant contributions to the field, including this exhaustive, seven-volume work detailing the plant life of Australia, which was published from 1863 to 1878. It was part of a series of works commissioned by the British government to document the flora in its colonies. Using the extensive numbers of specimens at Kew - and with the help of Ferdinand Mueller (1825–96), a German botanist in Australia - Bentham was able to compile descriptions of more than 8,000 species of Australian plants, making these volumes the first completed compendium of the flora of any large continental area. Volume 3, published in 1866, describes 14 orders of dicotyledon flora in the subclasses polypetalae and monopetalae.

Page 2 of 12