An exquisitely illustrated, lively exploration of Latin plant names explaining the meanings behind hundreds of names, from vulgaris ("common") to mirabilis ("extraordinary")

Every gardener needs to know their Latin names. They may look confusing at first, but once you understand what certain key words mean, impenetrable sounding and hard-to-pronounce species names are suddenly demystified. Many Latin names hide the secrets of where the plant is found, its color, flowering times, leaf pattern, natural habitat, and all sorts of other information that's extremely useful to the gardener: if you want a plant for a shady place, choose one with a name ending in sylvestris ("of woods"), while if your garden is dry, look out for the suffix epigeios ("of dry places"). More than just a dictionary of plant names, this fascinating book explains the meaning of hundreds of Latin plant terms. Within these pages you'll learn that Digitalis purpurea (the common foxglove) is purple, that the sanguineum in Geranium sanguineum means "bloody" (its common name is the bloody cranesbill), and to steer clear of any plant whose Latin name ends in infestus.