You don’t have to be a floriculturist, phytologist, botanist or even an avid gardener to enjoy this outstanding book – you just need to admire flowers and flowering plants (or at least have some incidental interest). Kingsbury has chosen 100 – of the 300,000 or so known species of flowers – that have had a significant impact on human culture. You get a page of text that includes a tidbit of horticultural information about each flower – along with a sidebar on its origin, longevity, size, habitat and colour – and a lengthier passage on the flowers importance on the development of our culture. There is also a sumptuous full page colour illustration of each flower. I’ve spent almost as much time leafing through the book drooling over the photos as I have reading the text. If you enjoy this book you’ll also likely want to read it’s companion – “The Story of Trees“.

Noel Kingsbury is an internationally known writer and lecturer on horticulture and the environment with a spate of books under his belt. Charlotte Day trained first with the Royal Horticultural Society before turning to art.