Books about Palms

 

I’ve  had Martin Gibbons excellent guide book: “Palms” study guide and identifier for years.

         His new book ‘ A POCKET GUIDE TO PALMS’ seems to be a quantum leap beyond the first. Still full of enthusiasm for the hobby of just being interested  in palms, it has now included new sections on cycads, extended the one page descriptions of palms to 200, and has stunning photographs of palms ( have to admit,  amongst which,  Bismarckia is one of my favourites).  Many of these are taken in habitat, some are from botanic gardens.  There are also sections on cultivation and germination, a short bibliography and glossary, and a Latin Names Index. This seems now to be the ideal beginners guide to palms for the enthusiast.

 

Palms throughout the world”  by David L. Jones.

 Is  a really excellent book, with reference to most of the palms that the other books missed out on, and all the other aspects of palms that you would expect. As a flavour of this the contents include: structure, economic importance, biology, cultivation, diseases and ailments, propagation, and palms for containers. Then it goes on to deal with a huge range of palms in alphabetical order. One fairly serious niggle so far is that Dypsis decipiens is missing, and so are references to Ceroxylon species.  

 

 

 

I have borrowed other books from the library or from friends.  For example,

 "Palms for the Home and Garden" by Lynette Stewart, is a very well presented  and enjoyable book to read.   "Palms of the World" by Alec Blomberry and Tony Rodd.  deals with many of the things in David Jones book but seems to have no reference to Dypsis (or Neodypsis) species (except for a very brief mention in a classification table).

 

There are many others I suppose, but I cant speak of them personally.

 

 

More on books as I update these pages.