“Bernhardt is an expert botanist, mythologist and writer-he will bring your garden to life."
-Meg Lowman, author in Life in the Treetops and It's a Jungle Up There

“This is the reference guide on the origins of plant names based on classical mythology."
-Robbin Moran, The New York Botanical Garden

“On the 300th birthday of Carl Linnaeus, Peter Bernhardt finally unlocks the mystery and romance of plants that has long been hidden in their names. A highly original and entertaining read for all who love flowers and plants."
-Paul Alan Cox, Institute for Ethnomedicine

Zeus, Medusa, Hercules, Aphrodite. Did you know that these and other dynamic deities, heroes, and monsters of Greek and Roman mythology live on in the names of trees and flowers? Some grow in your local woodlands or right in your own backyard garden.

In this delightful book, botanist Peter Bernhardt reveals the rich history and mythology that underlie the origins of many scientific plant names. Unlike other books about botanical taxonomy that take the form of heavy and intimidating lexicons, Bernhardt's account comes together in a series of interlocking stories. Each chapter opens with a short version of a classical myth, then links the tale to plant names, showing how each plant "resembles" its mythological counterpart with regard to its history, anatomy, life cycle, and conservation. You will learn, for example, that as our garden acanthus wears nasty spines along its leaf margins, it is named for the nymph who scratched the face of Apollo. The shape-shifting god, Proteus, gives his name to a whole family of shrubs and trees that produce colorful flowering branches in an astonishing number of sizes and shapes.

Amateur and professional gardeners, high school teachers and professors of biology, botanists and conservationists alike will appreciate this book's entertaining and informative entry to the otherwise daunting field of botanical names. Engaging, witty, and memorable, Gods and Goddesses in the Garden transcends the genre of natural history and makes taxonomy a topic equally at home in the classroom and at cocktail parties.

Peter Bernhardt is a professor of botany at St. Louis University, a research associate at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, and a fellow of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, Australia. He is the author of several books, including The Rose's Kiss: A Natural History of Flowers.