No group of plants attracts a more passionate following than the tenacious miniatures that seem most at home clinging to the rocky faces of alpine slopes. More than half a century ago, enthusiasm for these plants, which brighten even arid prairie landscapes and boggy coastal barrens, inspired a small band of gardeners to form the American Rock Garden Society (now the North American Rock Garden Society). Soon thereafter, the group began publishing a journal devoted to rock garden plants in the wild and in cultivation. This anthology gathers the best of the journal's writings from those first 50 years. The North American continent is one of the world's great storehouses of connoisseurs' treasures - the home of Penstemon and Phlox as well as of many choice species in genera as diverse as Aquilegium and Trillium - so it seemed entirely appropriate to make American natives the theme of this collection.
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