title: The Hostapedia: An Encyclopedia of Hostas
author: Mark R Zilis
description: The Hostapedia by Mark R. Zilis is a large 1125 page hard-bound encyclopedia featuring over 7400 hosta descriptions, A-Z. There are over 1897 color photos. This is the most definitive work on hostas to date. The author is the same who published the very popular Hosta Handbook which is out of print, but continues to be sought after by hosta collectors. The descriptive format for each hosta in this encyclopedia is nearly identical to that of the Hosta Handbook. That is, for each hosta, the following information is included: name, name of hybrid &amp; hybridizer (if known), origin, history, description of hosta (size, coloration, habit, etc), flower, status of availability, author's comments, similar hosta types, significant sports and significant seedlings. 
  This hosta guide is the ultimate guide for anyone interested in hosta information. 
  
  Published in 2009 by the author's hosta nursery: Q &amp; Z Nursery, INC
  
  Cover Price of this book is 79.95. Our Amazon price is 87.95 because Amazon's shipping reimbursement to the seller of 3.99 does not cover the actual shipping cost, packaging for corner protection or insurance &amp; delivery confirmation of this 12 lb book package. Our actual USPS shipping and insurance cost is 8.29 for standard media mail and 15.25 for expedited, ie priority. (Please note that most retail nurseries, including Q &amp; Z the publisher, are charging $12 for media mail shipping per book and you must purchase 2 books.) We've done our best to keep the cost affordable so that Amazon shoppers can find this great book.
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  # Hosts and Guests
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Max Beerbohm
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
  
  BEAUTIFULLY vague though the English language is, with its meanings merging
  into one another as softly as the facts of landscape in the moist English
  climate, and much addicted though we always have been to ways of compromise,
  and averse from sharp hard logical outlines, we do not call a host a guest,
  nor a guest a host. The ancient Romans did so. They, with a language that was
  as lucid as their climate and was a perfect expression of the sharp hard
  logical outlook fostered by that climate, had but one word for those two
  things. Nor have their equally acute descendants done what might have been
  expected of them in this matter. Hte and ospite and huesped are as
  mysteriously equivocal as hospes . By weight of all this authority I find
  myself being dragged to the conclusion that a host and a guest must be the
  same 