The Best Botanical Books of 2021

A Review of 2021 Botanical Titles

This is a selection of some interesting and worthwhile books published in 2021, of botanical interest. Books concerned primarily with kingdoms other than plantae are not included and will be featured in a future review.

A notable feature of many of the books reviewed here is the quality and number of images deployed, especially the more detailed works concerned with identification. The capabilities of digital photography allied to appropriate editing mean that digital images can now rival good traditional illustrations in several ways: in the level of detail they can show; the ease of producing a single composite image, perhaps to demonstrate variation within type, developmental differences of plant parts or other aspects of in situ growth, and of course good colour reproduction. The ubiquity of digital cameras and suitable software means that many capable botanists can now produce material suitable for publication with minimal editing.  

UK and Ireland 

Over the last few years, new and updated publications produced by the BSBI have incorporated high resolution digital colour photographs as an adjunct to or even replacing conventional illustrations. This is not too surprising as many BSBI publications are concerned with problematic and difficult groups, where clear visual guidance can be of great help. This trend is also evident in BSBI titles published last year. The Field Handbook to British and Irish Dandelions – BSBI Handbook No. 23.  was a substantially updated version of the old Dandelions handbook number 9, now in a bigger format, extensively revised with new entries, up to date nomenclature, maps and descriptions and lots of photos!  It was published too late in the year for it to be rigorously tested yet, but it certainly looks to be a useful guide. Also published earlier that year, was the Broomrapes of Britain & Ireland. BSBI Handbook No. 22. Renowned for being taxonomically challenging, these unusual parasitic genera include several of Britain and Ireland’s rarest plants. Clearly laid out, with great photos and illustrations, this handbook should encourage more people to look out for some of the less common species. Another title published last year in the BSBI handbook series, Monograph of British and Irish Hieracium section Foliosa and section Prenanthoidea, also uses a mix of colour photos and illustrations and as with previous volumes on the difficult Hawkweeds (Hieracium spp.) group does an excellent job of presenting its material.

Two guides from the Field Studies Council in the ever popular and useful AIDGAP series were consistent best sellers in 2021. Both are inexpensive concise guides, and both use conventional key systems. Sphagnum mosses, was essentially a key without any illustration plus brief notes on ID– an up to date replacement in some ways for the old JNCC Sphagnum: a field Guide (1992) which was widely used for teaching purposes. Covering 90 of the most common and some less common but habitat specific species, Grasses: A guide to identification using vegetative characters was designed to help field botanists and surveyors with identification outside the flowering season, but anyone with an interest in grasses will find it useful. All colour photos and notes are cleverly and usefully laid out opposite the corresponding illustrated key entry on facing pages. The photos size and quality is better by and large than comparable guides in this price range.

Other small full colour guides last year include one from Faith Anstey. An addition to her beginners series, Start to Identify Composite Flowers: Daisy, Dandelion, Thistle was a step by step guide to the daisy family and covers about 50 of the commoner ones found in the British isles. Compositae (now known as Asteraceae) is the largest plant family in the world, so well worth getting to grips with.

If you live in Lancashire or are staying in the area, then the Sefton Coast north of Liverpool is recommended as a botanically interesting place to visit. The area includes the largest duneland in England and contains many iconic species, not just plant rarities such as Epipactis dunensis (Dune Helloborine) but other notable wildlife species such as Natterjack Toad, Sand Lizard and many specialist invertebrates. Philip Smith’s Wildflowers of the Sefton Coast is an excellent small guide to take with you, covering not just the flora but also providing a good overview of the various habitats and their management. 

The second reprint of the 4th edition of Clive Stace’s New Flora of the British Isles came out at the end of 2021 and like the first reprint incorporates minor corrections. It is mentioned in this review as no further corrections will be made in any future reprints. All the corrections made during the course of each reprint can be downloaded  from here as pdfs.

Europe

Several botanical works on French and European Flora also make good use of high quality photographs. Volume 1 of Les Bryophytes de France, devoted solely to the liverworts, includes thumbnail photo-illustrations to the keys (from family down to species) as well as a good mix of both macro and micro photo images.  Although not as widespread as in the UK, some areas of France (particularly the higher mountains regions and Brittany) have similar densities of species to the western parts of the UK and overall the number of bryophyte species is actually somewhat greater in France than in the UK. The series will be useful not just for those with an interest in the flora of France but for comparative purposes. Les Fougères et plantes alliées d’Europe, another work in French, was a substantially updated and revised version of Rémy Prelli’s Guide des Fougeres et Plantes Alliees de France et d’Europe and now in a larger format than before.  An encyclopaedic work as well as an ID guide, it too used good quality photographs purposefully not just for ID purposes but as a feature of the book. David Holyoak’s European Bryaceae was a detailed account of the largest family of the mosses, in which all species descriptions are accompanied by original illustrations and photos taken in the field. The images are generally smaller than in the previous two works just discussed, but are pin sharp. 

Several other interesting works on the flora of France came out last year. Végétation du nord de la France – Guide de détermination is an elaborate key and requires some competence in the French language to make the best use of.  Atlas de la Flore du Centre-Val de Loire, is the final volume in a series of atlases on the Loire Valley and is part of a larger series produced by the National Botanical Conservatory of the Paris Basin. Atlas-catalogue de la flore vasculaire du Var. is an illustrated inventory of a floristically rich department  in the Provence region of France.

From Spain we had  Flora Iberica. Volume XIX: Gramineae published in two parts. This completes the entire series of 21 volumes, first started in the 1980s. The illustrations in both these books on grasses are very detailed and match or even better those in Hubbard. Another book with particularly fine photographs is Nova Flora Neerlandica, Volume 1: Lycopodiopsida & Polypodiopsida: Wolfsklauwen, Biesvarens, Paardestaarten en Varens. This is the first of a new series documenting the flora of the Netherlands in detail. From Italy we had Flora Analitica della Toscana, Volume 8 which covers the Asteraceae genera Taraxacum, Hieracium, and Tolpis; and the orders Apiales and Dipsacales. This is the final volume in a detailed examination of the diverse flora of a floristically rich region of Italy.

Other botanical works on European Flora in English include the 2nd edition of Chris Thorogood’s revised and enlarged version of his Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Western Mediterranean.

Rest of World

A second edition of the popular guide Bulbous Plants of Turkey and Iran was published by the Alpine Garden Society. Fully revised with a new text by Christopher Grey-Wilson, 150 additional species and 350 images have been added. The book also has more detail and better quality photos than the first edition.

Published by the RBGE Plant Explorer: A Plantsman’s Travels in North Vietnam highlights the diversity of plants observed during several multi-agency expeditions to the mountain ranges in this area. Many of the plants are hardy in the UK.  Morning Glories of Thailand and Southeast Asia covers the botany, horticulture and culture of Convolvulaceae in the region as well as providing a field guide.

Two interesting works from South Africa were Aquatic and Wetland Plants of Southern Africa and Iridaceae of Southern Africa. From North America we had Flora of North America North of Mexico, Volume 10: Magnoliophyta: Proteaceae to Elaeagnaceae, the latest volume in this monumental proposed 30 volume series.

Orchids

Published by Stuart McPherson’s Redfern Publications, A Compendium of Miniature Orchids Second Edition 4 Volume Set came out in October. This updated and lengthened edition of the well received 2013 original was released as a smaller format version, with photographs illustrating more than 500 additional species.

Karel Kreutz released two new orchid books this year. Orchids of the Benelux Field Guide (written in 4 languages including English) is a pared down version of his very large 2 volume Dutch opus Orchideen van de Benelux. Orchids of Israel, which he considers his best work to date, is a systematic overview, each individual entry being illustrated by several very high quality photos.

Les Orchidées de Guyane (The Orchids of Guyana) showcases the rich diversity of orchids in this region. Some 350 species are covered, all illustrated and described (in French). The work is based on many years of collecting and cultivating samples. The material has never been published before. 

Plant Science

A useful new book was the Illustrated Plant Glossary by Enid Mayfield. It is very similar to the Kew Plant Glossary, but is a larger and more extensive book and with much more illustration (all in colour) Both have many common entries, but also some unique ones. 

Good Reads

2020 and 2021 have seen a burgeoning number of books exploring the lessons that humans can draw from our increased understanding of the complexities of the biosphere and how the components of a local habitat interact, often in hidden and surprising ways. Sheldrake’s Entangled Life first published in the autumn of 2020, and subsequently in 2021 as a paperback, is an eloquent and engrossing read that draws attention to the ways in which fungi help create a communication network between plants in a ‘Wood Wide Web’. This is an idea that the forester Wohlebben has also explored with regard to trees in The Hidden Life of Trees (2016). He has also gone on to show how humans too are deeply connected to the natural world, in the The Heartbeat of Trees.  These books also touch on another theme. Whether our traditional ideas of ‘intelligence’ need expanding. The plant neurobiologist Stefan Mancuso is a leading advocate of the concept of plant intelligence, see his Brilliant Green (2015) and The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behaviour (2018). Like Wohlebben, Mancuso has expanded on his ideas in The Nation of Plants , following a strand implicit in some of the books above but put centre stage here – that plants have much to teach us about respect and consideration of other denizens of Earth. He wittily develops a set of articles in a bill of plant rights, reflecting the central role plants play in the very existence of animal life and sustaining animal existence. 

Also pursuing the connections between people and plants, the author Robin Wall  Kimmerer has been praised for her influential book Gathering Moss, which came out in paperback in 2021.  In this book the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.

Other writers with different perspectives have also been exploring the relationship between plants and people. Plants & Us How They Shape Human History and Society, edited by Peter Akeroyd was something of a cornucopia of a book that could be dipped into at will to unearth sometimes surprising facts about all things plant related.  Another book that you can dip into, Around The World in 80 Plants  by Jonathan Drori was written in a similar engaging style to his successful Around the World 80 Trees (2020).

Straddling both this and the next section we have Taming Fruit: How Orchards Have Transformed the Land, Offered Sanctuary, and Inspired Creativity, by Bernd Brunner This was the Spectator’s Gardening book of the year. An interesting and well written book, packed with fascinating historical, botanical, and cultural information and nicely illustrated.

Gardening

The RHS published two monographs in 2021, both produced to their usual high standards and which appealed to both botanists and gardeners, The Genus Agapanthus by Duncan Graham and the excellent Lathyrus: The Complete Guide by Greg Kenicer and Roger Parsons.  We also had the final volume of Hong De-Yuan’s three-volume monograph on Peonies of the World and Claire Austin’s Peonies, a personal selection written by a nurserywoman and aimed more at gardeners than botanists.

Two small guides that are worth having on the book shelf are Cyclamen: A Concise Guide by Martyn Denney and A Passion for Snowdrops by George Brownlee. The first was published by the Cyclamen Society and packed with information and with all colour photographs. The latter book is written by an enthusiast from a personal perspective and also has plenty of good photographs and useful background information.

Finally Martin Rickard’s book on Ferns for a Cool Climate provided a welcome new guide to over 500 different taxa including new cultivars as well as hardy species that are emerging from Eastern Asia. 

Botanical Art

Rhododendron Dissected Flora in Close-Up was published by the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, who have a long history of interest in the genus. A beautiful art book of and of botanical use in identification. From further south we had A Florilegium: Sheffield’s Hidden Garden, a fine compilation, featuring over 100 full page exquisite colour drawings from the archives of the Sheffield Botanical Gardens. Indian Botanical Art showcased work, now held at Kew, that was mostly commissioned from unknown local artists in India in the 18th and 19th centuries, reflecting both their skill and the rich flora of the region.

Two books on the use of watercolour in botanical painting came out in 2021. Colours of Nature Botanical Painting was a reissue in paperback of a useful and well illustrated guide to mixing and using watercolours and Leigh Anne Gale’s Colour for Botanical Artists and Illustrators covered some of the same ground but also also included step by step tutorials.