Siberian squill - Scilla siberica Spring Beauty

America's Famous and Historic Trees tells the stories of various trees that Meyer and his cohorts rescued or propagated: oftentimes, when trees were going to be cut down, he and his workers headed off the bulldozers, rescuing the tree with their massive tree hoe. Other trees--like the Indian Marker Pecan in southeast Dallas--were propagated before they died. Some of the ancestor trees still stand in their historic places--like Elvis Presley's Pin Oaks on the grounds of Graceland. Chapters here follow the trials and tribulations of specific trees, and end with "how to propagate" instructions for a wide variety of species: sycamore, cottonwood, bur oak, magnolia. This book is not about photographs--what images are included are simply of big trees alongside houses or suburban developments, awkward and misplaced, like an elegant old man in a multiplex. Meyer hopes to inspire his readers to plant and nurture forests that will outlive them, and to rescue trees from the unknown forces of the future by revering their pasts. --Emily White
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (2001-04-20)
Price: $30.00

Lack of regulation and poor quality control were just a couple of the details that led to the abrupt crash in February 1637. Tulipomania was the original market bust--people were ruined, debts went unpaid. It was a disaster similar to the stock-market crash of 1929. A brief resurrection of the mania occurred 65 years later in Istanbul, and while it was not the financial obsession Holland experienced, it led to the creation of standards in flower shape and increased the development of new types. You don't need to be obsessed to enjoy this book--an interest in tulips, history, and the futures market ensures that this will be a remarkable read. --Jill Lightner
Publisher: Crown (2000-02-29)
Price: $23.00

Pavord's passion for the flower is evident from the opening pages of the book, where she tells of scrambling across the hillsides of Crete in search of an obscure, indigenous purple tulip. The story of the discovery of this tulip leads into Pavord's extraordinary history of this beautiful, enigmatic flower. As with all the best love stories, Pavord's is told from the perspective of the object of affection--in this case, the tulip--from its adoption by the Ottoman sultans of Istanbul in the 18th century to its present cultivation by the Wakefield Tulip Society.

Along the way, incredible stories of people's investments in the flower emerge, the result, as Pavord explains, of a unique feature of the tulip. Its variegated colors are produced by a small parasitic aphid, which weakens the plant but produces its gorgeous hues. The tulipomania that gripped 17th-century Europe was a form of futures trading, as people purchased tulip bulbs at increasingly inflated prices with the hope that they would flower into the most beautiful and kaleidoscopic colors imaginable. Tulip is an extraordinary book, beautifully illustrated and offering a fascinating story of our obsession with the most ephemeral of objects. Buying tulip bulbs will never be the same again. --Jerry Brotton
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (1999-01-15)
Price: $40.00