Tropica: Color Cyclopedia of Exotic Plants and Trees From the Tropics and Subtropics, for Warm Region Horticulture in Cool Climate: The Sheltered Indoors

by Alfred Byrd Graf

Alfred Byrd Graf is probably the most widely traveled plant explorer of the world's tropics and subtropics. Horticulturist, botanist, and professional photographer, he has roamed the earth in the spirit of Von Humboll, Darwin, and David Fairchild earlier in the 19th and 20th centuries, in search of exotic botanicals to add to the enlarging horticulture of the world. Among the honors received by the author are the award of the large Gold Medal of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Certificate of Merit of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Distinguished Service Award of the Horticultural Society of New York, a Citation Award of the American Horticultural Society, and the Tercentenary Medalliou of the State of New Jersey. IN 1967 he was invested with the Sarah Champman Francis Medal of the Garden Club of America for outstanding literary achievement. In Pittsburgh, in 1972, Alfred Graf was elected to horticulture's hall of fame, the highest distinction given by the society of American Florists, and in 1978he was awarded the doctor of Science degree. His most recent publications are TROPICA, Color-ama of Exotic Plants with 7000 photos incl. Plants indoors. Also Hortica (8100 photos), Color Cyclopedia of Garden Flora in all Climates showing Hardiness Zones. He is the President and founder of Roehrs Company, Book division.

Genres: Gardening, Plants, Nonfiction

1154 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Lannie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this dusty beauty on a shelf at an AirBnB. It's a thoughtful, love-filled collection of vintage photos of pretty much any and every tropical plant you could ever find. I opened it up and found the name of the weird gummy air-root trees that speckle Avenida Sumaré here in São Paulo. I spent maybe too much time in it for a picture book, even reading all the excerpts from the German-American botanist who dedicated his life to the endeavor of photographing 7000+ plants in color specifically for people to fawn over in an arm chair. It's a chunky delight that I wish I really owned, full of charm and life.