Although written primarily for the gardener it contains much useful information for the naturalist.

Identification is facilitated by an alphabetical list of plant genera, except vegetables where English names are used. This is followed by the colour section comprising 96 plates, each of 5-8 colour photographs of disease symptoms. The main body of the work follows with written descriptions of the diseases.

Not all diseases can be attributed to a known cause or narrowed down to a single species without recourse to microscopy or other laboratory techniques which are outside the scope of this work.