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The Origin of Plants: The People and Plants That Have Shaped Britain's Garden History Since the Year 1000
 
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The Origin of Plants: The People and Plants That Have Shaped Britain's Garden History Since the Year 1000 (Paperback)

by Maggie Campbell-Culver (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
Price: £9.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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  • This item: The Origin of Plants: The People and Plants That Have Shaped Britain's Garden History Since the Year 1000 by Maggie Campbell-Culver

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Product details

  • Paperback: 449 pages
  • Publisher: Eden Project Books; New edition edition (1 May 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1903919401
  • ISBN-13: 978-1903919408
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 3.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 231,870 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

The Times Literary Supplement

An impressive work in both scope and detail. The story is a fascinating one...A most welcome and accessible reference work


Financial Times

The extraordinary explosion in biodiversity over the past millennium is the subject of this fascinating work

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The Origin of Plants: The People and Plants That Have Shaped Britain's Garden History Since the Year 1000
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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating facts and beautiful illustrations, 15 Nov 2001
By A Customer
This is a lovely book that makes a perfect present for anyone who is interested in history, or plants or art. Some of the illustrations are quite exquisite.
Each century from the 11th to the 20th has its own chapter with significant dates listed at the beginning. The history of England is then intertwined with the history of plants and the stories of the people who discovered them. In the chapter on the Normans, for instance, Maggie Campbell-Culver tells us that the Wild Carnation or Clove Pink is thought to have been brought over from France after the Norman Conquest with the building stone brought from Caen for the construction of William's castles.
The illustrations range from engravings, through beautifully reproduced illuminated manuscripts to exquisite pen and inks and watercolours.
I have already bought two copies for friends and now intend to buy one for myself.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must of an English gardeners library, 18 Nov 2003
By Valerie Adolph "Garden Godwottery" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
This is an extensively researched and well-written book that investigates how garden plants arrived in England. The writer, a respected garden historian and fellow of the Linnean Society, has chosen to divide her material into centuries. She sets the scene with a look at Roman and Anglo-Saxon approaches to gardening and plants, then gets into more detail about plant immigrants, starting with the first century of the second millennium.

To put the reader more clearly in the picture the writer starts each chapter (century) with a list of significant dates so we can see how historical events influenced the arrival of plants. In the twelfth century, for example, plant introductions were influenced by the Crusades as plants were brought to Britain from the eastern Mediterranean region.

But this is not just a book about plants; it’s also about the people associated with them. Sir Thomas More, for example, who in his book Utopia envisaged a town where everyone had a garden around their home.

New plants are still arriving in England from around the world. A “living fossil” tree was discovered in Australia in 1994. Its Latin name is Wollemia nobilis (it was found by David Noble) and it is known as the Dinosaur pine. Plants have been arriving from every continent for centuries and shared back and forth especially to Europe and the US. Just as many new plants went from the New World to brighten English gardens, so seeds and plants were taken to North America by English settlers to create gardens in their new homeland.

If you enjoy reading about the background and history of plants, who found them and how they came to us, you will enjoy this book. It has a very decent bibliography and deserves a place in every plantsman’s (and woman’s) library.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Struggles to get beyond being a list of facts and dates, 27 May 2009
By V. Brock (Scotland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Such an interesting subject and I have laboured on with this book because the facts are fascinating. However, it has taken me over a month (forever in terms of how quickly I read) and I typically can only read short chunks here and there because the fascinating subject has been rendered pretty dull by the writing style.

What it lacks is fluid, colourful writing that weaves the facts into a compelling narrative, and where anecdote is introduced it feels very jarred - like the author isn't comfortable moving away from the facts in their driest sense.

I think it is more successful as a factual reference book than as an entertaining light read - you have to be pretty into the subject to keep turning the pages of this one.
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5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT
GREAT BOOK . GOOD CONDITION
LOVED IT AM DIPPING INTO IT ALL THE TIME
Published 1 month ago by Mrs. R. A. Stolz

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