Reviews (2)

Look elsewhere
Despite it's unusual layout and artful cover, this book comes across as a personal photo album. The snippets of saguaro lore do not justify the relatively high price, and the photography, while good, is defeated by the vertical format. Perhaps a better investment would be Carl Hodge's "All About Saguaros", which is referenced in the bibliography.

Sentinels of the Desert
If you are at all interested saguaros, this is a great book to start with. The unusual book size (4 1/2" x 10 1/2") nicely showcase the photos and accentuate the towering size of the cacti. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An excellent book for beginners who want to grow cacti.
Terry Hewitt has been a collecteor of cacti and other succulent plants for 40 years. For 25 of those years he has been growing the plants commercially at the well known Hollygate Cactus Nursery in Sussex, England.
His new publication is an excellent book for beginners who want the basics. Terry introduces you to the history of cacti and in the main deals with plants which are fairly common and often available from plant sources. You will learn how to buy and select the best plants, how to look after them, propagate them and control pests and diseases. A seasonal calendar is included explaining what to do during the different seasons of the year.
Information is additionally given on indoor arrrangements, greenhouse and outdoor growing. And a color photo section of about 50 varieties of cacti is included which tells you the origin of each variety, gives a botanical description and the expected height and spread of the plants when given pot culture. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Good reference work, good coffee-table book
This book is an excellent work for identification of cactus. It describes the proper growing conditions separately for each species, including sun vs. shade, kind of soil and hardiness to cold.

Nearly every variety of nearly every genera is listed and shown, with more than one picture of the cactus, if necessary, to facilitate identification (generally, one of the whole plant, one of the flower). Very complete descriptions of the cacti are provided, including the number and color of the thorns and other minutae.

The book has a handy finding-guide in the front, arranged by gross features (columnar vs. barrel vs. sprawling, etc.) to make it as easy as possible to identify an unknown plant.

Cactus from all environments are covered, including tropical, epiphytic and desert varieties.

Note that cacti, like all plants, are ultimately identified by their flowers; in particular, two cacti from much different native climates - and requiring much different cultivation environments - often look very similar; it is the flowers that distinguish them. This book cannot erase that reality - many cacti (again, like any other plant) cannot be fully identified unless they are in bloom.

This book is also not a tutorial for growing cacti. ...

This Illustrated Encyclopedia is a reference work, though the beautiful pictures make it an excellent coffee-table book as well. Indeed, opening the book randomly to nearly any page reveals breathtaking photography of cacti at their finest.

If you want to have no more that _two_ books on growing cacti, I recommend this Illustrated Encyclopedia ....

Great tool to identify your cacti
I'm an avid cactus collector and I get most of my cacti from the local supermarkets and greenhouses. Most of these stores will sell you the plant but will not give you any information about it. This is the reason why I needed a book that would help me identify my cacti and give me care instructions specific to each species. Well, that is exactly what this book will do for you.

The author of the book makes no assumptions about your background (you don't need to be a biologist or anything to benefit from it).

The very first section provides a guide that helps you narrow down the possible genera of your cacti by simply looking at its basic shape and other visible characteristics (like type of spines, number of ribs, type of clustering, etc.). Once you've chosen a set of possible genera, you go to the main section and look inside the chapter corresponding to each of the genera you chose. Inside each chapter you will find an item for each species that belongs to that genus. Each of these items contains a color photograph which will make it very easy to make a final decision about what species your cactus belongs to.

Each item will give you additional information like a list of synonyms for the species, a brief paragraph describing the plant, its country of origin, cultivation details, the shape of the plant (when fully grown), it tells you whether it is day or night flowering, the length of the flowering period, how much light it needs, the type of compost it needs, and the minimum temperature required.

As a bonus, the book contains a brief section about cultivation techniques (only four pages long).

A very precise and descriptive look at all cacti.
This is the most detailed source of cactus infomation that I have come across in the past eight years. The descriptions are very precise, especially; size, cultural habits,and all the basic growing necessities, with a great number of column cactus included. That's terrific! Most cacti enthusiasts will be overwhelmed by the photos(over 1200), which can captivate anyone into the beauty of cacti. Details such as: number of spines,ribs, and projected size can be a novelty for the ameteur collector. Also, there is added information about growing requirements,such as; light, temperature, water, and different soils mixes to be used for certain cituations. Mr. Innes and Mr. Glass have put together the best book on cacti that I had found,nevertheless, the price is very affordable.

An easy read, informative, bargain-priced publication.
Reviewed for THE AMATEURS' (Cactus) DIGEST BY Dave McRitchie, Toronto, Canada. This new book is a re-issue (November 1997) of the book first published in 1991 and covers some 1200 species. The photography is excellent, at least equal to that of the very popular "Cacti-The Illustrated Dictionary" by Rod and Ken Preston-Mafham and has the additional advantage of showing the columnar cacti which are not included in the latter volume. Of interest to many will be the inclusion of many hybrid species. This certainly has inspired me to want to try my hand at hybridization. For the newcomer to the hobby, there is information re soil, light, temperature etc. for all the described plants plus a section on identification. I don't know if there are any errors in taxonomy or description. I'll leave that up to more knowledgeable collectors than myself. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A masterpiece
After 1044 pages, 813 black and white photographs, 194 color photographs, 165 line drawings, and 135 distribution maps, cacti lovers will have no problems finding their favorite cacti in the wild or getting background on their systematics. This is a wonderful book, and one can never tire of perusing its contents. It is rich with information and an excellent introduction for those readers first entering the exotic world of cacti. Some of the most interesting parts of the book include: 1. The use of the scanning electron microscope to study surface patterns of cacti. Students of botany will realize that correlating the fine structure of cacti with taxonomy would be an interesting research project. 2. The root system of the Opuntia echinocarpa cholla. 3. The metabolism of cacti: the Craseulacean acid metabolism which allows closing of the stomata during the day. 4. The chemical chracters of cacti, particularly the use of two-dimensional chromatograms. 5. The evolutionary relationships within the family of cacti. 6. The role of asexual reproduction in promoting the survival of hybrids in chollas and prickly pears.
The book will no doubt serve as an excellent reference book in many years to come.

exellent reference for beginners and experts alike
an awesome reference for everyone. this book hasgreat color photographs and information on hardiness and soil types for specilizedplants. very thorough as to identification and various hybrids if any. also has nice color photos and line drawings of each plant in detail ... Read more