The Story of Flowers: And How They Changed the Way We Live

Horticulturalist Kingsbury (Wild) comes up short in his efforts to tell the stories of “one hundred flowers as they came into our gardens.” Profiling and providing brief cultural histories of various flower species, he notes that Communists used carnations to represent the socialist movement and that Christians adopted the white “Madonna lily” to stand for purity. National symbolism, Kingsbury writes, is rife with flowers such as the iris, which, signified by the fleur-de-lis, came to represent France after fifth-century king Clovis used it as his emblem. There’s some amusing trivia—it’s possible to get a “slight buzz” from eating too much saffron, and oleander is toxic enough that “using the long, straight twigs for barbecuing meat has been a route to death more than once”—but the facts feel disconnected from any overarching analysis and are short on insight, failing to deliver on the subtitle’s promise to reveal how flowers have changed human society. Day’s illustrations are easily the highlight of this outing and offer vivid full-page depictions of each species. Green-thumbed readers might find a few tidbits of interest but will largely come away disappointed. (Mar.)