I LOVE this paragraph because it's one of those that makes me go "Right... Frodo wrote this story." You've got the history and geography that are clearly his own work, and then you get what is so, so clearly just Sam listing all the plants he could remember, most likely at Frodo's request. I can see Frodo deferring to Sam's garden-lore, much like Bilbo defers to the Gaffer's, and I love that so much
I love the idea of this being Frodo going “Sam, can you come here and tell me what those plans were, please?”
@is-it-mungojerry-or-rumpelteazer Yeah, I feel like Frodo had a strong impression that plants were one of the most important parts of Ithilien but he either didn't recognize many of them or else was too exhausted to really pay that much attention, but canonically Sam does spend a fair amount of time exploring the plants that grow there so he would know, or at least make a good enough guess. It's a very meta reading of what's essentially a descriptive paragraph but it would fit so I headcanon that's what happened
