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by Anna Pavord.
Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, N.Y., U.S.A, and London, England, 1999.
439 pp., Trade, $40.00.
ISBN: 1-58234-013-7.
Reviewed by George Gessert, 1230 West Broadway, Eugene, Oregon 97402, U.S.A.. E-mail: ggessert@igc.org

One of the many changes that World War II brought about was drasticsimplification of the way that we see ornamental plants. Before the war plant breeding and art were so closely allied that some writers, artists, and plant breeders claimed garden varieties of plants as works of fine art. After the war art and plant breeding went their separate ways. Ornamental plants became decorative objects and consumer products, and genetics, which had previously belonged to everyone, became the more-or-less exclusive property of science, business, agriculture, and medicine.

The dissociation of art and genetics trivialized not only ornamental plants, but writing about ornamental plants. This genre, which had always been somewhat rarified, became more than ever a vehicle of escape - escape into charm and detail, into a parallel universe where nothing uninvited can intrude, not even the last half century. Controversy does not ruffle this realm, and taste is so entirely individual that it is tasteless to discuss.

The trauma of Nazism has diminished with the passage of time. While no contemporary books explore genetic art as straightforwardly as did Sacheverell Sitwell in Old Fashioned Flowers, published in 1939, several excellent ornamental plant histories that engage aesthetic issues have appeared. For example, Jack Goodnt cultivation, Peter Valder's Garden Plants of China explores a major nonWestern gardening tradition, and Gerd Kr¸ssmann's The Complete Book of Roses traces the coevolution of roses and human cultures.e Complete Book of Roses traces the coevolution of roses and human cultures.

Now Anna Pavord reaffirms some of the connections between art and ornamental plants in an excellent new book, The Tulip. She tells the story of tulips with a scholarly thoroughness unlikely to be rivaled anytime soon, and yet the book has the wit and charm of the very best garden writing. The Tulip is quite simply the best history of any single breeding complex ever published.

There are some 120 species of tulips, most of them native to Central Asia. The first clear evidence for their presence in gardens comes from 13th century Persian poems. Two centuries later the Turks had glorious tulip gardens in Istanbul, and eventually gardeners there grew more than a thousand named varieties. Connoissuers favored extremely elongated petals that tapered to needle-like points, completely unlike the rounded, or blocky flowers preferred today.

The story of the tulip under cultivation is a story of aesthetic change as the plant moved from Islamic to Christian civilization, which occurred in the 16th century, and then from scholars' gardens, to those of aristocrats, to the allotment gardens of the first plant breeders, who were known as florists. Since about 1850 tulips have become democratized and available to all. Each of these moves resulted in major alterations in the plant.

Along the way we see tulips reflected in tilemaking, herbals, prints, and flower painting. Tulips contributed to the rise of Dutch flower painting because the flower arrived in Europe just as the genre was emerging. In the early 1600s tulips were so expensive that paintings of the most coveted varieties, even by the best artists, were cheaper than actual plants. Tulip owners wanted records of their treasures, and bargain-conscious collectors acquired paintings in lieu of the real thing.

Pavord delights in quirks and excesses. Some 17th century wunderkammer were gardens of living rarities, with tulips as centerpieces. There were men who bankrupt themselves for tulips, and from 1634 to 1637 the entire Dutch economy fell hostage to the plant. At the height of tulipomania single bulbs sold for more than the cost of the most expensive houses in Amsterdam. According to the Parallel Universe School of garden writing tulipomania was inexplicable madness. Pavord sees it as an expression of capitalism. Today we associate booms with trade in real estate, stocks, or precious metals, but under the right circumstances almost any commodity will do.

In Europe tulips reached their aesthetic height under the guidance of florists. They were urban artisans who devoted their spare time to plant breeding, and met in taverns to discuss horticulture and debate aesthetic ideals. Over many decades, and many beers, ideal tulip form became defined as some variation on a partial sphere. Floristry peaked in the early 19th century, after which passions and rivalries began to focus more on sports than plant breeding. By 1900 mass-produced tulips had crowded out the works of dreamstruck amateurs.

In addition to being a superb history, The Tulip is a visual treat. It has 149 full page illustrations of tulips and tulip-inspired works of art. Most of the illustrations are in full color. This is a book that should be in the library of anyone interested in connections between art and biology.