Temperate Garden Plant Families – Peter Goldblatt and John C. Manning

This is the type of book I don’t usually mark as having read, because this type of book is more often one you flip through to look for specific information you’re interested in. But I actually did read this – I’m interested enough in the subject that the entries were worthwhile reading.

The book touches on the plant families that are important for agriculture and gardening in temperate zones, though it’ll touch on which ones have cross over into tropical zones. Since I do track the families of the flowers I’m labeling on my other blog, it’s interesting to me to see how the family relationships are classified here in a recently published book, because it’s different than what I’ve settled on for my source of truth. (The Native Plant Trust’s GoBotany website, since they’re the people behind the Flora Novae Angliae.) It’s such an interesting place we’re in right now with all the DNA study going on. So the plant geek in me very much enjoyed that in this book. It’s maybe a little more technical than a beginner can easily use – I got a lot of this because I’ve been doing as much work with plant families as I have. But it’s a good overview reference if you want to start seeing relationships.