Robert Bedard Horticulture : Orchid Books

Bookstore

On-line Ordering in Association with:	I love books, almost as much as I love orchids. I have selected a few of the ones that I like the most, and provided links to Amazon.com so you can enjoy them too. I learned a lot about orchids from reading books, before I started learning from other professional orchid growers. I hope you find something here that you will enjoy as much as I did. (For those titles without a link to Amazon.com, please see the order page for details on ordering from Robert Bedard Horticulture.)
Order from Amazon.com	Botanical Latin William T. Stearn 4th Edition Timber Press, ©2004 Covering the History, Grammar, Syntax, Terminology and Vocabulary of Botanical Latin. Linnaeus really owes a debt to earlier scholars such as Pliny the Elder, for laying a foundation of using Latin to describe plants so that botanical scholars living in geographically isolated areas could benefit from each other's work. If you are interested in Botanical Latin, this book is an exhaustive reference.
Order from Amazon.com	The Botany of Desire Michael Pollan Random House Trade Paperbacks; (May 28, 2002) A fantastic treatment of the concept that plants co-evolve with humans. This book is broken into four sections, each covering a different plant that has some desirable quality for humans: the Apple (for its sweetness), the Tulip (for its beauty), Marijuana (for its intoxicating effect) and the Potato, (to represent Control.) The treatment is both fascinating and entertaining. I found it fascinating for example, that the Apples of Jonny Appleseed were not sweet varieties for the table, but rather sour varieties that were better for making apple cider (which was usually fermented.) Pollan asks in the Introduction: "Did I choose to plant these potatoes, or did the potatoes make me do it? In fact, both statements are true. I can remember the exact moment that spud seduced me, showing off its knobby charms in the pages of a seed catalog ... it never occurred to me that our catalog encounter was of any evolutionary consequence whatsoever. Yet evolution consists of an infinitude of trivial, unconscious events, and in the evolution of the potato my reading of a particular seed catalog on a particular January evening counts as one of them."
Order from Amazon.com	Culture of the Phalaenopsis Orchid Bob Gordon Laid-Back Publications, ©1985 Robert J. Gordon A classic book on the culture of this very popular genus. If you are learning to grow Phalaenopsis, this is a very valuable book, filled with great information. It's organized in such a way that beginners don't get burried in details, yet advanced growers can find information of value.
Order from Amazon.com	Earth From Above Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Harry N. Abrams; Revised edition, ©August 1, 2002 The first edition of Earth From Above - the result of the aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand's five-year airborne odyssey across six continents - was published around the world to critical and popular acclaim. Now this monumental achievement has been revised and expanded for the twenty-first century, with additional photographs, all new essays, and updated information. While this is not an orchid book, anyone with a sense of aesthetics and a love of natural beauty will find this book fascinating.
Order from Amazon.com	Field Guide to the Orchids of Costa Rica and Panama Robert Dressler Cornell University Press, ©1993 Whether you actually plan to use this as field guide, or just as a reference, this is a fantastic book. The first field guide to the orchids of Costa Rica and Panama, this book is lavishly illustrated with 240 stunning color photographs and 229 line drawings. It contains keys to all the orchid genera in the region and most of the orchid species. To make it possible for nonbotanists to identify at least the genus of the orchids, Dressler emphasizes features that can be readily seen with the naked eye or a hand lens.
Order from Amazon.com	Gardner's Latin Bill Neal Algonquin Books, ©2003 A delightful little book, highly readable, which contains a brief history and overview of botanical latin, and definitions of many latin epithets that you will find throughout horticulture. It also has some very interesting anecdotes in the margins.
Order from Amazon.com	Home Orchid Growing Rebecca Tyson Northen Van Nostrand Reinhold, ©1970 If you are only going to have one reference on growing orchids, this may well be the one. This is the book that started me on my passion for Orchid growing. Simple enough for the beginner, but detailed enough for the advanced grower that wants to try their hand at hybridizing, this book has it all.
Order from Amazon.com	An Introduction to the Cultivated Angraecoid Orchids of Madagascar Fred Hillerman, Arthur W. Holst Timber Press, ©1986 Fred Hillerman quite literally wrote the book on Angraecoids. This book is simply a must-have for anybody serious about growing these fascinating orchids. From Aerangis to Sobennikoffia, it covers each species in detail, with a description of the plants, their habitat, their culture, and comments that can only be made by somebody that has collected most of these species, grown them, and propagated them.
Order from Amazon.com	Manual of Cultivated Orchid Species Helmut Bechtel, Phillip Cribb and Edmund Launert MIT Press, ©1981, 1986, 1992 One of the best references on orchid species, now in its third edition, with updated binomials for those species that have been reclassified. Contains 864 color photographs and 62 line drawings. Covers most of the species you will find in trade, and them some. Whether you use it to figure out what you have, or what you want, this book should be in everyone's collection.
Order from Amazon.com	Orchid Fever Eric Hansen Random House, ©2000 Eric Hansen A seductive journey into the obsessive, outrageous, and mesmerizing world of orchids. From the steaming jungles of Borneo to the hallowed halls of Kew Gardens, from the clandestine orchid nurseries of Europe to the peat bogs of northern Minnesota, here are luscious, sexy flowers, orchid smugglers, fist-fighting botanists, moths with twelve-inch-long tongues, and government officials who raid greenhouses with attack dogs and automatic weapons. "You can get off alcohol, drugs, women, food, and cars, but once you are hooked on orchids, you're finished. You never got off orchids ... never."
Order from Amazon.com	Orchids of Africa, A Select Review Joyce Stewart Houghton Mifflin, ©1981 A beautifully illustrated, large format book suitable for the coffee table or the reference library. Each species is described, and a brief history of its introduction to cultivation is given. There are numerous Angraecoids covered.
Order from Amazon.com	Orchids: The Pictorial Encyclopedia Of Oncidium Harry Zelenko ZAI Publications, ©2002 Harry Zelenko This new edition includes more than 850 full-color, actual-size precise illustrations of orchid plants and flowers in 65 sections, plus essays on each group by renowned botanical experts specializing in this unique spectrum of Oncidium. Also included is a DNA table that shows the relationship between the species included in this book. If you love the Oncidiinae, you really should consider getting a copy of this book, it's fantastic.
Order from Amazon.com	Phalaenopsis: A Monograph Eric Christenson Timber Press, ©2001 International Phalaenopsis Alliance The definitive work on the genus Phalaenopsis, replacing Sweet, (who Christenson credits in the Preface.) If you collect Phalaenopsis species, or hybridize Phalaenopsis, you simply must have this book.
Order from Amazon.com	The Private Life of Plants David Attenborough Princeton University Press, ©August 21, 1995 Based on the popular six-part BBC television program, this ingenious work gives us another view of botany, and shows us the level of "intelligence" that plants exhibit in their numerous adaptations to their environment, in attempts to survive. A remarkable book with fantastic photography. A must have for any serious plant enthusiast book collection.
	Sanders List of Orchid Hybrids Royal Horticultural Society Sanders is the reference on orchid hybrids. The volumes contain all hybrids registered during the period for which they are issued. Before PCs and the Wildcatt database, this is how you researched what is in a particular hybrid, and how you did genealogies. Some people don't like computers, and so these books are still useful for them. These were my copies that I used for years, and show some signs of wear. I would want $20 each plus shipping. E-mail me if you are interested. Sanders Addendum 1961-1970 (cover is beat-up on this one) Sanders Addendum 1971-1975 Sanders Addendum 1976-1980 Sanders Addendum 1981-1985
Order from Amazon.com	Ultimate Orchid Thomas Sheehan DK Publishing, ©2001 Created in association with the Smithsonian Institution and the American Orchid Society, Ultimate Orchid includes more than 400 dazzling full-color photographs that present a cross-section of the orchid world. The authoritative text contains essential facts and interesting details for all of the major orchid groups. Beginners and seasoned fanciers alike will find inspiring and useful information throughout the book. This is one of the best deals that you are ever going to see for this quality of photography and information in a book for $17.50.
Order from Amazon.com Hardcover Paperback	The Wild Orchids of California Ronald A. Coleman Cornell University Press, ©1995 Cornell University Fantastic and complete book on the Native Orchids of California. Has 129 color photographs and distribution maps to aid in identification. Clearly narrated so as to be useful for amateurs, yet complete enough to be useful for the serious orchidist. An excellent book; highly recommended.

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Robert Bedard Horticulture • Scotts Valley, CA • (831) 439-9484
All content ©2004 by Robert Bedard. Last update: 04/12/05
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