The plants we grow in our gardens have dual personalities. All of them originated in the wild, and evolved highly specific traits in response to their environments. But then humans took them up—either for their beauty or their useful qualities—and changed them, altering their colors, foliage, fragrance, size, and hardiness in order to align them with our wants and needs. Kingsbury relates these absorbing histories with erudition as well as a story-teller’s instinct for revealing detail. In all, he covers 133 plant groups that are the mainstays of our gardens. The time you spend poring over the pages of Garden Flora will not only bring you pleasure, its rich and varied stories will also make you a better, and better-informed, gardener.