For more than a decade, gardeners have been turning to a beautiful little hardcover book called Gardener's Latin, by Bill Neal. Neal understood that as Latin terms began appearing with increasing frequency on nursery tags and gardening catalogs, gardeners would need help. So he weeded through the Latin words that describe and distinguish among plants and flowers and compiled a volume of select, brief, clear definitions.

Gardener's Latin leads us down the path from abbreviatus to zonatus, turning aside here and there along the way for little-known horticultural facts and fables and the wisdom of

gardeners from Virgil to Vita Sackville-West.