James Brayton Hall, president of the Garden Conservancy, examines what America's gardens say about our culture and how new approaches pioneered by the Conservancy are helping to protect and document these landscapes for the future. Several examples of West Coast gardens are highlighted, including remarkable successes—such as the gardens surrounding the former prison on Alcatraz Island—and one near failure.

For one hundred years The Huntington has been spreading knowledge like pollen, helping scholarship bloom into exhibitions and publications. Sometimes the right pollen is hard to get though, that's why it's good to have friends who can help.

Henry Huntington acquired one of the rarest books in the history of English literature: the so-called "bad quarto" of Hamlet. Zachary Lesser, professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses how this book's discovery in 1823 transformed our ideas about Hamlet, how it made its way to The Huntington, and what can we learn through this book's history about modern libraries.

Dennis Kruska, a noted authority on the Yosemite Valley, discusses the literature that enticed sightseers to experience the Yosemite's scenic wonders following the first tourist party to the valley in 1855. The literary lure on tourism has worked so well, says Kruska, that today Yosemite is painfully loved to death.

Dympna Callaghan, William L. Safire Professor of Modern Letters at Syracuse University, considers Shakespeare's complaints about the limitations on what he could say and how he could say it.