Sima Eliovson (Author)
Eighth edition - 1975
Published by: Macmillan South Africa
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Foreword
Man's present concern about his environment has highlighted the vital role that vegetation and the individual plants of which it is composed play in our lives. Most of the African veld in all its fascinating variations and complexity is composed of two main elements, grass and trees. Grass, the staff of life, feeds us and our domestic animals and clothes the veld in a summer's cloak of green fading to the pale gold of winter. Trees are the structure, the bones, of our savanna, bush and forest. They too are woven tapestry of our lives as they give us shelter shade and food. Little wonder therefore that most people feel an affinity to trees and that imaginative gardeners through the ages have used them, together with grass and other plants, to create a beauty in gardens which has supplemented nature itself. Gardeners strive after beauty and it is for them that this book is written. In these pages the tools for the creation of more verdant and peaceful gardens in our cities and on our farms are supplied. I have long been interested in plants, particularly grasses and trees and therefore it gives me special pleasure to comply with the request to write the foreword to this edition of Shrubs, Trees and Climbers. Sima Eliovson's name has become synonymous with gardening and garden plants in South Africa. No other author has done as much as she to stimulate the interest of the man in the street in gardening and garden plants. In these ventures there has always been a close and cordial relationship between the Botanical Research Institute and herself. It began twenty-two years ago with the preparation of the first edition of Flowering Shrubs and Trees. Since then six subsequent editions have seen the light. Whereas each of these editions was to some extent revised and added to, the eighth edition is virtually a new book. It has been greatly expanded and all the photographs have been retaken. The arrangement of the information has, however, been maintained.
Like all the other books by Sima Eliovson this volume is aesthetically pleasing and at the same time eminently useful and practical, thus bearing witness to her deep personal knowledge of her subject.
Since the first edition of this work our knowledge of trees, shrubs and climbers suitable for growing under tropical and subtropical conditions has increased greatly. This book contains much that is new and should prove most useful, not only in Southern Africa but also in other parts of our hemisphere.
I believe that this book will become a standard handbook which will contribute much to the development of the gardens of the future. By the production of this book Sima Eliovson has yet again increased the debt that we owe her.
Dr. B. DE WINTER
Botanical Research Institute, Pretoria
1975