His carefully chosen alphabetical plant lists are useful once the reader has established the relevant chapter. This does sound like a handy reference book and I am such a plant geek I would probably read the thing.

And while mastery of the classical language may not be a prerequisite for tending perennials, all gardeners stand to benefit from learning a bit of Latin and its conventions in the field.Flaveola and lutea mean yellowish, flavens means yellow, and luridus means pale yellow (the last being the opposite of what an English speaker might expect). Reference books that are fun to use and a joy to behold are rare - this one will serve me well as a guide for planting that garden I surely have in my future. Scan through this list of around 900 words and discover what the two word / binomial plant name tells us about plants.

Now that plant names are no longer nonsense syllables to memorize, I have no trouble remembering them. While it is not a book to sit down and read from cover to cover, the pages that highlight different plants or explain different types of plant names make for a nice mix of pleasure reading to go with the reference material. Harrison's "Latin in Action" sections were cute and nicely illustrated but it bugged me that in the explanation of Aconitum napellus monkshood, "like a little turnip, referring to the roots" the illustration does not include the root! He feels that ordinary gardeners can enjoy unravelling ‘meanings’ through their historical background.It contains 1,500 of the most useful and most widespread Latin names, organized into thematic chapters including Colour, Size, Form and Habitat. Despite the serious look of these books, the information inside is really accessible and written in understandable language.

Behind the Name' feature boxes further increase the book's practical value, and a wide range of botanical watercolours ensure that it is beautiful as well as functional. Financial Times Online RHS Latin for Gardeners is an informative, entertaining and beautifully illustrated unravelling of the mysteries of botanical Latin. This book includes a definition and pronunciation guide for each word, as well as a 16-page alphabetical index, so that it can still be used as a conventional dictionary of Latin names.

Besides the many pages that explain over 3,000 plant names, there are stories of great botanists interspersed.

It allows us to find our way around nurseries; it sorts out confusions when two plants have the same English name; and it gives us all kinds of information about how big or small a plant will grow, what shape or colour it will develop, and what habitat it prefers.The process has even been reciprocal, and my Latin vocabulary is larger now than it was when I was a teenager even though I’ve never taken another Latin course since then. This book is a great starting point for beginning to learn the meaning of some common "Latin" botanical names.