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'What's in a name?' Shakespeare asked. 'That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' But what did he call a rose? Was the flower that the ancient Persians called gul the same rose that Shakespeare knew? Was he talking about the damask rose? Or perhaps the dog rose? And what was behind their names? Is the smell of tea roses like that of the beverage, or is it called that because the plants were imported from China along with cargoes of tea? From baby blue eyes to silver bells, from abelia to zinnia, every flower tells a story. Gardening writer and historian Diana Wells knows them all. Here she presents one hundred well-known garden favorites and the not-so-well-known stories behind their names. Not for gardeners only, these flowers tories tell of human striving--stories of ambitious explorers, clever hucksters, arbitrary monarchs, and patient scients. To compile this book, Diana Wells devled deep into horticulatural history, etymology, and lore to uncover myths, legends, folk beliefs, and stories of the intrepid botanists who searched the world's far corners for new and unusual flowers.
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