Colchicum The Complete Guide

About this book

The fourth in the acclaimed series of RHS Horticultural Monographs, Colchicum: The Complete Guide reveals the fascinating horticulture, botany and history of these spectacular autumn flowers.

- All 104 species described in detail with 220 photographs, plus a key to aid identification
- More than 80 of the most widely grown cultivars illustrated and fully described
- Detailed history of the introduction of colchicums to cultivation by plant explorers
- A survey of the growers who have selected new Colchicum cultivars
- The botany and classification of the genus, including its relationship to Androcymbium and Merendera
- The history and use of colchicine in medicine and plant breeding
- A checklist of around 560 cultivars and scientific names, with synonymy and other valuable information including introducers, dates and descriptions
- Advice on cultivation and the best ways to use colchicums in gardens

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Biography

Christopher Grey-Wilson was a botanist at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, for 22 years. He has edited Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, The Plantsman and The Alpine Gardener and is author of many wild flower guides as well as monographs on Clematis, Cyclamen, Dionysia and Meconopsis. He is a vice-chairman of the RHS Joint Rock Garden Plant Committee and in 2007 was awarded the RHS's highest accolade, the Victoria Medal of Honour.

Rod Leeds is a former chairman of the RHS Joint Rock Garden Plant Committee and judges for the Alpine Garden Society and RHS. His Suffolk garden, where he grows many bulbs, has featured in several magazines. He is author of Autumn Bulbs, The Plantfinder’s Guide to Early Bulbs and Bulbs in Containers.

Robert Rolfe is an authority on alpines and their history in cultivation and is a vice-chairman of the RHS Joint Rock Garden Plant Committee. He travels widely to photograph alpines in the wild and writes about them in The Alpine Gardener. He is author of The Alpine House: Its Plants and Purposes and Portraits of Alpine Plants.