reference books, atlases, dbases, photo & text sites

Hello everybody,
it is a real joy to share the pleasure gardening gives to novices and experts alike.
In Crete where I live there is a wealth of plants - wild, cultivated, imported, everything.
I would be most grateful if you could supply any good reference sources, because my main problem is presenting these plants to you in names you understand.
Hopefully this thread will provide a library for use by all interested, and save the searching in vain for hours every time.

I used to use a really good on-line database called Botanica-Plus, but it's gone now. It was an Australian programme, and I think you could buy it on disk from Beaver Communications.

One of the best general reference sources I use is the Royal Horticultural Society's A-Z Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants. It has details of about 15,000 plants with 6,000 photographs. The Pan Garden Plant series (about Perennials, or Shrubs, or Conservatory Plants) probably also have some plants found in your part of the world.

Other good sources are some seed catalogues. Chiltern Seeds lists over 5000 plants from all over the world, with Latin and local common names and descriptions. There are no pictures, though.

For your local plants, you must surely be able to get a number of books locally? Perhaps your Ministry of Education or Agriculture can suggest something? I don't have any names handy, but I'm sure the Alpine Garden Society has books on the local flora of Greece if not just Crete.

To be understood everywhere, you need to give the plant its Latin name. It is no good using common names, as you say. They differ from place to place and do not identify a particular plant. It is also unlikely that a plant from Crete (or anywhere else except the US) will have a US common name.

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Patty, you only have a problem with Latin names because you think they're impossible to learn. All you have to do is read them often enough and they just sink in. You do not have to learn them like complicated mathematical formulas. That thought would put anyone off. Just browse through a seed catalogue with Latin names while you're drinking your coffee, and you'll be surprised how quickly you get familiar with it.

I recommend Chiltern Seeds catalogue - it not only has the Latin name but it gives you the meaning, and there are no pictures so you get used to visualising the plant from the description. http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk If you want pictures too, try T & M.

The purpose of having a Latin name is so that the plant can be identified and not confused with any other plant. A lot of the time, the Latin describes something about the plant - the colour of the flower or shape of the leaves or how it grows, so eventually you can picture a plant from just the Latin name even if you've never heard of it. It's much more fun than maths.