Everett is a botanical artist. She has been concentrating on painting tulip species and has travelled extensively to see them growing in the wild.
In recent years, Anna Pavord’s The Tulip (1999) and Richard
Wilford’s Tulips: Species and Hybrids for the Gardener (2006), both
rightly acclaimed, have given species tulip enthusiasts the kind of
information they have been crying out for since A.D. Hall’s
landmark publications over half a century earlier. Appetites were
refreshed, nurserymen were encouraged, exhibitors brought more pots
of tulips to the benches at AGS shows (despite the difficulties of
presenting the flowers in peak condition) and only one thing was
lacking: a comprehensive and current monograph.The gap has been
plugged. With Diana Everett’s The Genus Tulipa: Tulips of the World
we now have a superb new survey, immaculately produced and
jam-packed with the kind of up-to-date information that botanists
and gardeners need. Diana is a tireless traveller and artist,
painting tulips in the wilds of Turkey, the Near East and Central
Asia. She possesses a rare combination of talents – outstanding
ability as a watercolourist and a specialist botanical knowledge.
The result is a volume that brings together detailed information on
around 78 species, plus a similar number of sub-species and forms,
each accompanied by pin-sharp photographs and the author’s accurate
and beautiful illustrations. She also takes account of recently
described species such as Tulipa kolbintsevii and Tulipa koyuncui.
A putative new species, provisionally named Tulipa bactriana, and
the now described Tulipa ivasczenkoae (honouring Anna Ivaschenko,
whom some AGS members will have met in Kazakhstan) are also touched
upon. The supporting material to this taxonomic treatment is
especially valuable. With their contribution the taxonomists
Michael F. Fay and Maarten J.M. Christenhusz bring classification
and species delimitation of the genus into the 21st century. Of
particular interest to the grower is Richard Wilford’s helpful
chapter on tulip cultivation. The appendices include an
alphabetical checklist of the genus Tulipa and its many synonyms, a
summary of BenZonneveld’s ground-breaking classification based on
DNA analysis (2009), a list of nurseries stocking species tulips
and notes on prominent related authors, collectors and growers. All
in all, apart from a few minor typographical errors (the
proof-readers have struggled with the spelling of Tulipa
neustruevae, but they are not the first), this is a model of what a
really fine monograph should be.
*Alpine Diary Journal*
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