VOLUME 14 :: January—October, 1952 Illustrations shown in ...

30 THE CACTUS AND SUCCULENT April, 1952
THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO SUCCULENTS
The Literature on Succulents
By GORDON D. ROWLEY
INSTALMENT SIX
" Of making many books there is no end ;
And much study is a weariness of the flesh."
—Ecclesiastes 12 : xii.
In my first flush of schoolboy enthusiasm for succulents, the names of Higgins and Jacobsen, Borg and Haselton
filled the whole horizon. University days broadened the outlook, and with a list of 100 titles in 1945 I imagined
little remained to be read. It was Mr. R. K. Byrd who really opened my eyes to the vastness of succulent literature.
With the equivalent of 40 feet of bookshelves packed to overflowing, he still had not exhausted the possibilities.
Today, with a select index of over 2,000 titles, I find references continue to come in too fast to handle comfortably.
Consider first the scope of the subject. About two to three percent, of the world's flowering plants, members
of two dozen families—are eligible for inclusion in succulent collections. They live in unexpected places ; their
anatomy is extraordinary, their metabolism unique. No conscientious ecologist, morphologist or physiologist
can therefore afford to ignore them. Wild or naturalised, succulents occur throughout the world, except towards
the poles, and accounts of them are hence ever likely to turn up in local floras, natural history society journals and
gardening weeklies. And to all this is added the spotlight of popular favour ; the cactus is the fashionable indoor
plant of the austere nineteen-fifties, and nurserymen are not slow to keep the fashion alive. If you need further
proof of the amount written on succulents, scan the back issues of " Amateur Gardening " or the 200 odd volumes
of the " Gardener's Chronicle," or run your eye through the collective indices of the R.H.S. Journal or Curtis's
"Botanical Magazine." I try to keep check of the various society periodicals dealing with Cact^es, Kakteen, Cactussen,
Kakt6er, Cactaceas and Cacti in a dozen other less familiar languages : goodness knows how many there are
beyond the thirty known to me.
Book Collecting
As soon as one graduates beyond the four-book-stage in succulents, one has to face the heart-aches of
book-buying in mercenary, dollar-starved England, where this type of specialist hobby provides a playground for
the collector maniac who thrives on limited editions and curiosa. I have seen priceless books on succulents hoarded
for years as collector's pieces, often with the pages uncut, or in languages the proud owner would never admit he
cannot read. How often has one wished that rare books, like Crassulas, would multiply ad lib by cuttings !
At this point one might reasonably ask : "Why bother with these old books ? Are not the modern ones
far better ? " The answer is yes, in many ways—certainly in descriptive detail, presentation and general grasp of
the subject. But the older books exhale a charm of their own, particularly when they have hand-coloured
illustrations, the product of a long-forgotten age of cheap, skilled labour. Also they are valued for their first
descriptions of new plants, which determine future ideas on the interpretation of species.
Types of Book
A bibliography on succulents covers everything from the smallest pamphlet to encyclopaedias ; from gardeners'
pocket books to impressive monographs, " some ... to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be
chewed and digested." There are highlights and shadows ; mysteries, curiosa and jokes. There are the purely
"arty" books like "Les Fleurs Plantes Grasses" (Davids and De Montherlant), and the solidly academic : "Notes
on Mesembrianthemum Part II " (L. Bolus) with descriptions of 782 new species in Latin. There is the strictly
factual title, like " The Genus Sedum L," and the sickly sensational : " Great Scott—the Thrill of Cactus Growing."
There is the intentionally humorous " What Kind'a Cactus Izzat ? "a classic by Reg Manning, and the unintentionally
humorous, as Haage's first attempt to render his " Kakteen Zimmerkultur " in English. There is Loudon's
amazing " Encyclopaedia of Plants," the ultimate in compressed information, and a book like Rouhier's " Le
Peyotl," with 372 pages devoted to one plant, Lophophora williamsii. There is even one pornographic item! And
1 wonder how many beginners have ordered Ethel Mannin's popular novel " Cactus " in the impression that it
would help them to name their Mammillarias ?
First prize for lavishness must go, I think, to De Candolle's opulent folios of " Plantarum Succulentarum
Historia " (1799-?!837), with up to 187 full page colour plates by Redoute, best known of all plant illustrators.