Guide to the Flowers of Western China Second edition

Authors: Christopher Grey-Wilson and Phillip Cribb, 696 pages, 2,250 colour photos, 246 x 189 mm. Hardback, ISBN 978 1 84246 796 1, Kew Publishing, 2023. 

A celebration of one of the world’s richest temperate floras, this second edition is the most comprehensive single volume on the flowers of western China. Completely revised and updated, with over 2,700 plant descriptions presented in systematic order by family, each including details of the plant’s habitat, distribution, altitude and flowering time. Over 2,200 accompanying photographs offer a spectacular gallery of plants growing wild in China, with new additions for the second edition. Keys throughout the text aid correct identification, and the introduction describes the region, its provinces, geology, climate and vegetation.

An essential guide for all those travelling to western China, this book is also an important reference work containing a vast amount of information on the countless Chinese plants grown in gardens all over the world. As such, it is of immense interest to gardeners, horticulturists, botanists, naturalists and those working to protect the region’s astonishing floral diversity.

Christopher Grey-Wilson’s distinguished career has included many years as a botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, participation in botanical expeditions the world over and editorship of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, The Plantsman and The Alpine Gardener. His books include Cyclamen, The Genus Meconopsis, The Illustrated Flora of Britain and Northern Europe and Mediterranean Wild Flowers. Christopher holds the Royal Horticultural Society’s highest accolade, the Victoria Medal of Honour.

Phillip Cribb is a leading specialist on the taxonomy and conservation of orchids. He was Deputy Keeper of the Herbarium and Curator of the Orchid Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, until his retirement in 2006. A prolific writer, he has authored and contributed to many books including Field Guide to the Orchids of Europe and the Mediterranean, The Genus Cymbidium, The Genus Pleione, Orchids of Madagascar and Genera Orchidacearum. Both authors have taken part in numerous expeditions and botanical tours of western China since the late 1970s.