I confess, I haven't read every word on the 400+ folio sized pages. I have skimmed every page, however, and stopped and read far more than I intended. Not many books come out that are utterly novel and fresh and new. And superbly produced, chockablock full of fantastic images and truly novel information that you will not find anywhere else.
If you search my blog, you will find several posts about my travels in the Tian Shan: I am stunned as I look through this volume how few of the plants I have seen on several visits over two years time: that mountain range is simply astonishing! I have also blogged about the senior author several times. Vojtech is extraordinary on so many counts: I know no other plant explorer who has explored more mountains over a longer period of time (for over 3 decades so far he's traversed much of Eurasia yearly, as well as North America, South America to boot!). I doubt that many people have seen and photographed more species of montane and alpine flowers. Or grown them in his exquisite garden.
Meanwhile holding down a job as Director of the Gene Bank of the Czech Republic. Vojtech just gave a stunning presentation about this book (and its namesake mountains) at our second Rocky Mountain Steppe Summit--and sold a goodly number of books while he was at it!
The flora of the Tian Shan shares a few species with the Himalayas to the south and the Altai mountains to the north and east. But the lion's share of the plants that grow there grow no where else.
And unlike Himalayan species, the Tian Shan wildflowers are amenable to cultivation in North America.
There will be 18 copies of the book sold for $69 advertised in the forthcoming copy of the North American Rock Garden Society bulletin: I don't expect these will last very long. But yet another great reason to join America's premier organization of plant connoisseurs. (NARGS was the only organization to provide a grant to the authors to print this book).
Hopefully more will be ordered. It is conceivable you can obtain a copy from the author (he gives details as to how to get it on his webpage) but the cost will be much more.
If you live on the Eastern Seaboard, you may be able to buy one at one of the many places he will be speaking: I can assure you if you can make one of his talks, you'll need his book!
I hope he can obtain an American distributor so that libraries and bookstores across our country can get copies of this book!
Excuse me while I go back to skimming the text: who ever heard of Vinca erecta? What a stunning perennial. And all those Corydalis!
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