Book Review: Leucoufle's Carnivorous Plants

Marcel Lecoufle's Carnivorous Plants: Care and Cultivation is one of those rare carnivorous plant books that I wouldn't recommend buying. It begins with an introduction to carnivorous plants that includes such bizarre, imperialistic misinformation as "[t]he natives of certain tropical regions dare not, even today, touch Nepenthes, fearing the evil powers the plants are supposed to possess." That's simply not true. Many of the locals in areas where Nepenthes live frequently use the pitchers to cook with, the vines to build temporary shelter, and put the plants to frequent other uses. (Many of these are detailed in posts throughout this blog).

The next sections of the book go into the evolution of the plants, potting methods, etc. After these sections - which are also replete with oddities - individual species of carnivorous plant are described. There is no real attempt to give an overview of any genus of plant (except where it happens that the genus includes only a single species). Instead, there is, quite literally, a smattering of individual species described. This is an odd choice, given that that number of individual species of carnivore is far too vast for any single volume to capture in a way that incorporates both photographs, cultivation, history, description, and other pertinent facts.

To add to the troubling misinformation, some species have photographs with captions misidentifying the species. And, I don't mean misidentifying them as in "this is the old name for that species." I mean, completely wrong. Many of those are side-by-side with correctly identified species.

Carnivorous Plants: Care and Cultivation ends with a number of tables on the "principle species" for each genus. These are remarkably shortened lists of species of plants, even for 1990. It appears, on its face, to be more of a grow-list than a list of species under each genera of plants.

Overall, there's not too much I actually liked about this book. Obviously, others may disagree, but I would advise that you skip it.