Bulbs of North America/ Amianthium muscaetoxicum

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:33:35 PDT
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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