Alfred Wallace's adventures as a plant explorer on the Amazon. Co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of evolution by natural selection, he's one of the most readable victorian writers I've ever seen. Not to say that his later works on mysticism are necessarily worth a read...

Alfred Wallace and Henry Bates went together to explore South America and journey up to Amazon in search of natural history curios that they could sell back home in England. This is Bates narrative, written many years after the adventure. It's well written and engaging.

More travels, this time in the East. Some would say that it was Wallace's exposure to the tropics in both the east and the west that led him to independantly produce the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Edited by Wallace, this two volume set gives an idea of the hardships a plant hunter had to endure, and the marvelous things one would see on the Amazon.

Another victorian account, this time of Borneo. Again, very readable, but difficult to find.

JD Hooker, famous botanist, explorer, plant collector and director of Kew, found a lot of plants we take for granted in our landscapes. These are his journals from the Himalayas.

Banks accompanied a joint Royal Navy/Royal Society scientific expedition to the south pacific in 1768-1771, passing by South America, Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia among other places, and describing many plants for the first time. Over 80 species bear his name. He is credited with the introduction to the West of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa, and the genus named after him, Banksia.

This is his journal from that Voyage.

Okay, so it's actually a tv series, though it was published as a book as well. This is, without a doubt, the most amazing plant related television you have ever seen. Shot on location around the world, much of it in time lapse photography, they have such things as a flowering Amorphophallus titanum ( courtesy of the late Jim Symon ) and Nepenthes rajah, again in habitat. They show plants as moving, living beings through the use of time lapse photography, and the artistic standard of the production is very high. I watch this at least once a year for inspiration, and I always find a new plant to lust after.

This is a beautiful book and an indespensible reference tool for those who are interested in tropical plants. There are a lot of tropical Aroids and there are a lot of temperate Aroids - basically, all of your calla lilies, your Amorphophallus, your Anthuriums, Philodendrons, Aglonemas, Spathaphyllums, and various other less common plants. Deni Bown has pictures of many of them in habitat, a very good discussion of their habits and needs in nature, and even some cultural advice. Nowhere else are the history and natural history of so many varieties of Aroid so well described and condensed into an understandable, readable format. I highly recommend this book.

Perhaps the most clear, complete and correct book ever written on the general cultivation of carnivorous plants. Most carnivorous plant books deal with the plants in habitat, with only sparse, outdated cultural information, but this one is different. I've visited Peter's nursery, and I can tell you from firsthand experience that he knows how to grow and propagate carnivorous plants. In this book, married with a lot of pretty pictures, is the clear and concise information you need to keep that venus flytrap happy.

A beautiful picture book with some good advice mixed in. If you were not interested in growing caudiciform succulents before reading this book, you will be afterwards. This is one of a very few succulent books that I can recommend for the pictures alone.

If I only had one orchid book, it would be this one. A valuable reference for just about anything you're likely to buy in the orchid world with a surprising number of pictures are included on separate plates. This is a serious orchid book with a lot of pretty pictures, and I find it invaluable when browsing the orchid catalogs and websites. There are so many species of orchid available that a guide is definitely necessary, and I am continually amazed that whatever orchid I need to look up, it's in here.

This is a book more about plant people than plants, but it is a fascinating non-fiction accounting of one man's plant obsession, and the plant world of Southern Florida. Susan Orlean is published regularly in New Yorker magazine, and with good reason - she's a great writer. The book was made into a movie called "Adaptation", which is really not the same at all. In my opinion, the book is much better and more interesting.

Another book about plant obsessives, this time with a more worldwide theme, and a somewhat controversial take on CITES. It's still a great read, with a lot of interesting stories about the orchid world.

This is a non-fiction account of several things, chief among them being the history of the exportation of the rubber tree from Brasil, and the beginnings of the study of ethnobotany. Wade Davis is an excellent writer, and an experienced botanist, and this is also the story of a journey he made into the Amazon with the late Tim Plowmann, after whom you may see many Aroids named. It's a long book, but it doesn't feel like it; it's a good read.

This book is a collection of interrelated essays on tropical nature, and specifically how the plants and animals in a tropical rainforest relate to each other. It very clearly illustrates a lot of new theories about rainforest ecology. The writing style is some of the most interesting I've seen in a book on tropical forests. Highly recommended.