Reviewed by Charles Hardman

So reads the charming Haiku poem which, for some, is replete with philosophical and psychological metaphors. One doesn't have to dig any deeper for its meaning, however, than to take it at face value: a child playing with a jar of fireflies under the mosquito netting of a bed.

Or, to elaborate just a bit, it's equally valid to equate the "fireflies" of new ideas gleaned from the minds and hearts of others set loose in one's own mind and kindling one's own emotions to try or do something new. This book, Rock Garden Plants of North America, does just that with 58 articles selected from the fifty year history of the Bulletin of the North American Rock Garden Society.

North America is home to an amazing array of rock garden plants those "tenacious miniatures that are most at home clinging to the rocky faces of alpine slopes", to quote Deborah Garman, Publicity Manager of Timber Press. This diverse group of plants is eloquently written about by writers whose names many readers will recognize. (For the sake of brevity and not wanting to offend any of the book's numerous excellent writers by exclusion we will not include individual writers' names in this review.)

The book is divided into six parts. These are: Far West, Great Basin and Rocky Mountains, Plains States, Northeast, Southeast, and Throughout North America. Fascinating, beautiful, amazing, wonderful, exciting rock garden plants are found in all these regions. Is it any wonder they are such a diversified group?

What does all this have to do with bulbs? While one may come across bulbous, cormous, rhizomatous or tuberous plants throughout this book, there are entire chapters with the following names: Liliaceous Bulbs, Calochortus: Why Not Try Them?, Irises of the Pacific Coast, Trilliums of the West, Some Small Eastern American Irises, Eastern American Trilliums, Anemones in the West, Dodecatheon (yes, Dodecatheons produce long fleshy roots, but some species also produce rice-grain bulblets; see page 390.).

Ferns, Cacti, Penstemons, Arbutus, Shortia, Eritrichium, Dryas, Drabas, and North American native Primulas and Phloxes, all have their own chapters, as do Lewisias. (Lewisias, especially L. rediviva with its ability to revive after years of total dryness, have always struck this reviewer as being more bulb-like than herbaceous.)

There are locale articles, as well: Northern California, the Siskiyous, the Red Buttes, Great Basin, Eastern Cliffs, Pine Barrens, Arizona, Middle Atlantic States, Virginia Shale Barrens, the Carolinas, the list of articles goes on and on with not a boring read among them. Editor Jane McGary has turned what must have been a daunting selectional task -- 50 years worth of published articles to choose from; Whew! -- into an excellent reading adventure.

I would recommend this book for its diversity of subjects alone, but add to that its diversity of writers and you end up with a book that's a double winner.

I give a thumbs up to this book. It's sure to set gardening fireflies loose in your mind and heart.