Book-Australian Carnivorous Plants

[David Ahrens]

I went to the RHS gardens at Wisley a few weeks ago and bought a book called Australian Carnivorous Plants by Greg Bourke and Richard Nunn. I was wondering if anyone has seen it yet or read it. It is not a new book because it was published about a year ago. It looks quite good and has some nice photos of plants in the wild. I am working my way through it at the moment.

[SoLongFairWell]

I'm assuming it will be quite a good book as it's published by Redfern, Stewart McPherson's company.

[Marcel van den Broek]

Yes, it is a very nice book. I did a short review on it for CPN, the ICPS newsletter last year (CPN 41(3):122) .

Here it is:

Australian Carnivorous Plants

Greg Bourke & Richard Nunn

Redfern Natural History Productions 2012

ISBN 978-1-908787-02-6

Available for GBP 29.99/ 34.99 (Signed/unsigned) at www.redfernnaturalhistory.com

Reviewed by Marcel van den Broek

In front of me is the latest publication from Redfern, this time not from the hand of Stewart McPherson but “Made in Australia” by natives.

Greg Bourke and Richard Nunn are two carnivorous plant enthusiasts with a well deserved reputation in fieldwork and photography. They combined their knowledge and passion to produce a book about the carnivorous plants of their native land.

Let me start by stating what this book isn’t: It is not the long awaited and desperately needed field guide to the carnivorous plants of Down Under. But if not that, than what is it and why should you buy it?

It’s somewhat ungainly size (31.5 cm wide and24 cm high) proclaims exactly what it is: a coffee table book and a suburb one at that.

Not much for detailed text I’m afraid but a wealth of high quality photographs from all over this island continent adorn this book.

All families of carnivorous plant are mentioned in this work, as indeed are a very large number of actual species. The writers claim to have given the first complete listing of all currently known species of Australian carnivorous plants. That may no longer be the case with all the new disciveries and renaming , but everyone will have to agree that this is the most complete work on the subject to this date and impressive by any standard.

Each section starts with a short text giving the highlights of the botanical history of the family, some information on the structure of the plant, its trapping mechanism, the distribution and its habitat.

Nice touch is the short texts labeled “Photographic Challenge”, giving an insight in the problems of photographing the plants.

While I frankly would have liked more information on growing conditions this is a very good book.

The highly detailed pictures of each species are a feast for the eye and the stunning shots of the Australian landscape make you want to run to the airport and fly over.

The book ends with a section on the conservation status of Carnivorous plants in Australia naming not only the usual suspects as human influence as a main source, but also the lack of this influence as many species have evolved not only with but also because of 40,000 years of fire stick farming and modern Australian society is very much focused on the prevention of fires to protect property and people. Also global changes in the weather will see the demise of several species as species like Drosera arcturi are only found on the highest and coldest peaks and those places are getting scares.

All in all a great book to dream away with and at GBP 29.99 a very reasonably prized book at that.

[FredG]

.All in all a great book to dream away with and at GBP 29.99 a very reasonably prized book at that.

£25.67 on Amazon

[David Ahrens]

I have just finished reading the book and I quite enjoyed it,and as has been pointed out, it's a little short on text. It's a bit of a photographers book.

I enjoyed it anyway.