The New York Botanical Garden: Revised and Updated Edition

"Readers, be warned—you are entering enchanted territory."

So beckon Gregory Long and Todd. A. Forrest, co-editors of ths stately, stunning volume, as they guide us through centuries of botanical gardens worldwide and through 125 years of the New York Botanical Garden itself.

"A modern version of Eden," Long and Forrest call botanical gardens in general.

But in fact. the botanical garden has roots deep in pre-Christian antiquity. Thousands of years before Christ, the Persian empire named and nurtured plants. Ancient Greece—in the person of Aristotle, among others—and ancient Chinese emperors established what are now surmised to be the earliest botanical gardens.

Early botanical gardens, notably those of West European monastaries. were medicinal in purpose. By the 1600s Europe's venerable universities took up the botanical garden mantle. Then came the age of exploration and, with it, a great era of cultivating transplanted species. By 1735, Carolus Linnaeus, affiliated with the University of Leiden, devised a system of plant identification that still serves today.

Britain's King Georgie III created what is now the Royal Botanical Garden. By that time, the public garden's mission had become what the authors call "science, curiosities, and pleasure."

In the late 19th century, America was poised to take cues from abroad. A young New York couple, Nathaniel Britton and his wife Elizabeth, led press appeals, delivering l-attended speeches calling for New York's very own "Eden."

Success!

In 1891, the New York State legislature agreed to incorporate the New York Botanical Garden, allocating 250 city-owned acres for the NYBG.

Calvert Vaux (who'd designed Central Park) and Frederick Law Olmstead did initial work on the project. Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller helped guide and finance the endeavor amid considerable fanfare.

And the rest is history.

As readers of The New York Botanical Garden can discern from the lucid, lyric text and a bounty of photographs by Larry Lederman, this is a garden for all seasons.

In spring, a spread of tulips and daffodils give way to native columbines and other perennials. From June through September, literally thousands of blossoms unfurl in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. Also at this time, there's the brief and dramatic appearance of peonies.

Come autumn, chrysanthemums and more chrysanthemums. Also in the fall, bright foliage of long-established trees comprise the 50-acred Thains Family Forest, a proud vestige of the hardwood expanse that once covered New York City.

Winter at NYBG is not without its graces. Crabapple fruit are highlighted against the winter white. Also, say the authors, "Winter may be the most beautiful season for tulip trees, as their tall, dark trunks and spreading limbs can be appreciated against a carpet of freshly fallen snow."

Then, too, there is the fragrant Chinese witch hazel shrub that defies the cold, blossoming yellow from December to January.

In addition, of course, there are NYBG's year-round resources. The heart of these are housed within The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a majestic Victorian glassed complex that, as Long and Forrest say, "[offers] visitors an environmental tour from around the world."

The writers and photographer guide us through the Conservatory's 11 galleries from tropical palm collections to aquatic plants and vines to species from the American and African deserts.

Long and Forrest delve into NYBG's special presentations. There is, for example, the charming Holiday Train Show. Families line up starting in November each year to experience toy trains circulating around reproductions of New York landmarks like the Empire State Building, Kykuit (the Rockefeller family estate of Tarrytown, New York) Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. Perhaps the most outstanding factor of the Holiday Show is that the buildings are made of all-organic materials by the studio Applied Imagination, under the direction of artist Paul Russe.

The reader will find handsome reminders of the much-awaited annual orchid show.

And there is tribute to Art in the Garden. Here Long and Forrest suggest that NYBG "is an incomparable setting for the display of sculpture." We're treated to works by Picasso, Giacometti, Rodin, and others "transplanted" from the Museum of  Modern Art around NYBG grounds.

In this same vein, sculptures by Henry Moore particularly lent themselves to the garden’s outdoor winter environment.

It must be said that NYBG, in keeping with the time-honored botanical garden tradition emphasizes—celebrates, even—education. The Everett Children's Adventure Garden is an ambitious learning center for the young. NYBG's library is without peer. There are professional development opportunities for teachers and a cluster of botany related courses for adults.

Tucked within NYBG there is an extraordinary reference archive, a sphere of influence where 7.4 million dried plants and fungal specimens are preserved and stored. The William and Lynda Steare Herbarium is justifiably renowned.

A chapter devoted to the Herbarium Is illustrated with photos of beautiful, delicate, dried plant segments. They range from a dried stalk dating back to Captain James Cook's journey to Tierra Del Fuego (1768–1771) to a shrub sampling plucked during General William Custer's expedition to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Signature science has been underway as part of NYBG's trailblazing research tradition. This encompasses projects that have profound implications for countering climate change.

Since the book's publication, life has moved on apace at NYBG. After 28 years of distinguished service, Gregory Long recently announced he will leave his post as president of the Garden as of June 2018.

Glass master Dale Chhuly's vivid, sizable works will be strategically placed around the Garden grounds until late October 2017.

For those unable to make the Bronx trek, this book is the next best thing to being there.

"Enchanting territory" indeed.