Roses: A Study in Bloom (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9798182722742)

The rose at close range, from the first tight bud to the blown full head.

Seventy-two large plates follow a single flower through everything it does: the spiral heart of a garden rose, dew held along a petal's cooling edge, a hedge of crimson receding into evening light, the green calyx on the back of a bloom that almost nobody looks at. Colour is held true from plate to plate and every picture runs to the edge of the page, so the book opens flat into a single image rather than a grid of small ones.

Beside each plate sits a short note on what the eye is looking at - why a red rose looks like velvet, why white petals carry no pigment at all, why a cane bent toward the horizontal flowers along its whole length. Enough to reward a second pass, never enough to interrupt the picture.

Made as an object first: a large, quiet, full-colour volume for a table, a shelf or a gift, and for anyone who grows roses, arranges them, or simply likes looking at them.