Submitted by David on
For the succulentophile, this is a full-sized coffe-table book featuring 140 watercolours of some rare and fascinating succulents of the Transvaal reproduced at life-size. Covering an area of 262 449 square kilometres, this book boasts flora of the high mountains and the plains of an area now much of which is under urbanisation. Each plant is lovingly drawn with watercolours by Anita Fabian with descriptive text, Latin / Greek etymologies as well as history of each species. There are some quaint anecdotes, such as of Gasteria batesiana, named after a London trolleybus drive who grew this unknown species from seed in a glasshouse at the back of his garden which was spotted by a Reading professor of botany. David Hardy was a man of great enthusiasm who maintained and grew the succulent collection at the Pretoria Botanic Garden.
