The new edition of the Sunset Western Garden Book.

Am I missing something here? I purchased the new SWGB yesterday and it's going back today. The common plant name index is missing from the back! Unless you know the Latin name of the plant in question, there's no way to look it up. What were they thinking? Or do all of you know all the Latin plant names.

Hmmmm. I didn't know that it ever had that feature. The first one at hand here is one from 20 years ago and it doesn't have a common name index. Did the later ones?
Sherry

It new SWGB 2007 look at front of book on top corner: Completely Revised & Updated...

More than 8,000 plants.. Old books only have not much plants this time. So, now it more new plants name.

The previous edition has a 14 page cross referenced index of scientific and common names for all plant entries. It's completely missing in the new edition which lists plants in alphabetical order by the scientific name only. So in order to look up sunflowers, for instance, you must know that they are helianthus.

I just looked. Under Sunflower it says "see Helianthus" and I think that's always how I looked things up in the WGB. I don't recall ever noticing an index in my old ones. The common name just refers you to the latin name which then gives the info. No?

Thanks stella. I completely missed that. I (and everyone at the nursery where I worked) always used the index in the back to quickly look up information for customers. I'll just have to get used to doing it differently. Still seems like poor editing to me though.