@Greene ...
My rose mentor was one of those guys that spoke in botanical terms all of the time. He did not dumb it down for me ... oh, have mercy ...
Yes, he spoke in terms of crosses, lineage and classes of roses, too. He might as well have been speaking in a foreign language. Actually, it
is a foreign language ...
I bought a used book called
Botany for Gardeners: An Introduction and Guide by Brian Capon. It was a great starting point. (Of course, I had to buy a lot of non-picture rose books, too, to understand the rest of what Kim was talking about, but that's because we were dealing with a specific plant genera.)
Capon's book gave me enough information to get started and a pretty good overview. It wasn't so technical that I couldn't grasp the concepts. I am certain there are probably other books out there that work well for someone just starting down this path, but this is the one I found.
I can tell you this, no matter how much I've studied, I still feel like a novice and that I have a lot to learn. In fact, I have more questions now than I had when I started, so there's no end to the learning curve for me.
Smiles,
Lyn
