The expression "mad dogs and Englishmen" springs to mind reading this highly amusing, erudite account of the men who brought us so many of today's commonly grown garden plants. Ignoring the perils of shooting rapids, hurricanes, natives, wild animals and treacherous sea journeys, these gallant, obsessed men travelled the world in search of new plants. Sleeping with bedfellows as diverse as rattle snakes and donkeys, they resolutely soldiered on through unchartered country searching for seeds, fruit and plants with which to astound fellow botanists at home. Unfortunately even if the plant-hunters themselves survived, many of their samples did not, perishing in unskilled hands aboard ships that took weeks if not months to reach their destination. Meet the people behind the names: Governor Tulbagh (Tulbaghia), Anders Sparmann (Sparrmannia), Louis-Antoine Bougainville (Bougainvillea) and Pere David of Davidia involucrata fame amongst others. Read hair-raising extracts of their personal diaries which include Red Indian attacks, the living dead of Mykonos and shipwrecks. And travel the world from the earliest plant explorations in the East to the USA, Australia, China and Japan, Australia and the South Seas. Starting in the early 1500s, the author charts both the garden fashions of the times and the never-ending quest for new flora. Wittily written by biologist and botanist David Stuart, it is not, despite it's nature, an academic work, more an intriguing history into the heritage of today's garden plants. Accompanied by many botanical illustrations and portraits, it is a lively account of a type of man that unfortunately no longer exists. - Lucy Watson
