Observations: “The Essential Books Necessary If You’re Going To Keep Up”

Don’t get me wrong: I love the Internet. For the last seventeen years, it’s kept me entertained, informed me, and even paid the bills. Especially in the last five years or so, it’s been an incredible resource for discovering new advances and classic wonders in the botanical and horticultural world. I now count as close friends many people I never would have met without the old Intertubes, including the friend who introduced me to Buddha’s Hand citrons. The problem is that it’s not enough, especially for carnivorous plants.

This isn’t to say that good, practical information on carnivores isn’t available online. It’s just that as far as horticultural knowledge is concerned, good old-fashioned dead-tree books are still pretty necessary. Until Amazon.com develops a Kindle that can be dragged into the garden, left on a porch table for reference, or propped up next to a potting bench for reference, without worrying about dead batteries or mud all over the screen, books are still the best option. I don’t have a lot of faith in the future of the publishing business as we know it, but books on carnivores are still enough of a niche market that they won’t be supplanted any time soon. Besides, as the Czarina attests, laptops don’t work quite so well for showing off pictures of new species and cultivars to an appreciative but unsuspecting spouse.

The problem is that many books on carnivores are written for the typical fifth-grader working on a report for class back around 1963, not for serious enthusiasts wanting more than a sensationalist view of Venus flytraps. Of the others, I’ve come across painfully inaccurate and potentially catastrophic tips (my personal favorite was the suggestion that minerals could be removed from tap water by boiling it, which is a really good way of killing a pitcher plant or butterwort), obsolete or outdated species descriptions, and growing tips written by individuals whom I suspect might have seen a picture of a flytrap one time about a decade ago. Even so, I still have six books that I use for reference on a constant basis, and if I can’t replace one, it doesn’t get lent to others. In no particular order, these include:

The Savage Garden by Peter D’Amato. Ten Speed Press, 1998, 320pp.

Well over a decade after its publication, The Savage Garden is still the handbook for carnivorous plant enthusiasts, particularly beginners. It could use an update, especially considering the new carnivores described after it first saw print, but it still gives an excellent overview of proper care and feeding. If your budget is dependent upon buying one book for carnivore care, get this one first.

The Curious World of Carnivorous Plants: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Biology and Cultivation by By Wilhelm Barthlott, Stefan Porembski, Rüdiger Seine, and Inge Theisen, and translated by Michael Ashdown. Timber Press, 2007, 224pp.

The Curious World of Carnivorous Plants is an English translation of a German guide, and it works mostly as an academic guide to carnivore range, habitat, and adaptations. It’s still very readable for interesting laypeople, and the spectacular photographs, one of the hallmarks of Timber Press books, offer wonderful views of carnivores not normally seen in cultivation.

Carnivorous Plants by Adrian Slack. MIT Press, 2000, 240pp.

If we rise by standing on the shoulders of giants, then Adrian Slack and Charles Darwin deserve credit for creating the carnivorous plant community as we know it today. For those unfamiliar with Slack’s work, he’s generally considered Britain’s greatest living authority on carnivores, and as such has no compunctions about sharing his discoveries on carnivore care with others. While best known for working out the only known way to keep the Portuguese dewy pine Drosophyllum in cultivation, his tips on raising other carnivores are ignored at peril.

Pitcher Plants of the Americas by Stewart McPherson. McDonald & Woodward, 2006, 320pp.

Mr. McPherson was only 23 when he wrote his first book, and because of this, I’m painfully jealous. He literally wrote the book on South American Heliamphora sun pitchers, which makes me even more jealous. He also spent years studying pitcher plants in their native habitats, which only concentrates the jealousy. By the time I build up the expertise to confirm his observations, he’ll probably have four more, equally well-written, books available for purchase, and then I’ll really be jealous.

Growing Carnivorous Plants by Barry A. Rice. Timber Press, 2006, 224pp.

Members of the International Carnivorous Plant Society may know Dr. Rice as a former editor of the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter, and for his Lovecraft-inspired Utricularia cultivar names. He also takes some impressive photographs, both in the wild and in cultivation, and this book is the only one I’ve come across with a thorough view of the aquatic carnivore waterwheel plant Aldrovanda. Besides, it contains exemplary photographs of the only known carnivorous plant fossils, which is worth the price all on its own.

Triggerplants by Douglas W. Darnowski. Rosenberg Publishing, 2002, 94pp.

This is the book on triggerplants, especially the huge variety in Australia. It’s possible to raise triggerplants without this book, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I look forward to Dr. Darnowski writing an extensive update based on new discoveries (at the time of its writing, triggerplants were suspected of being carnivorous, a fact that was confirmed in 2006), but this will do until then.

A Guide To Carnivorous Plants of the World by Gordon Cheers. Angus & Robertson, 1992, 174pp.
Finally, A Guide To Carnivorous Plants of the World is a bit out-of-date, and has been out of print for years, but it’s worth tracking down a copy just for its uniquely Australia-centric view of Pacific carnivores. It’s also the only book found so far that gives a good guide to eco-tourism involving carnivores, with handy maps for planning trips to see the main groups of carnivores in situ. Besides, the author obviously had a thing for Nepenthes pitcher plants, because the photos and descriptions of the species and cultivars available at that time are simply incredible.

Well, that’s the list so far. I fully expect this list to change drastically in the next few years, as interest in carnivores continues to grow to levels not seen since the Victorian Era. Not that I’m complaining.