Product Description
This beatifully presented book is an authoritative survey of the floral diversity of Europe, Asia and Africa. It presents more than 260 species of flowers, grasses, herbs, rushes, sedges, trees, shrubs, and aquatic and carnivorous plants, many of which are common species that are easy to identify. Included too are rare and endangered species. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lovely Overview Book
This is a lovely book with a nice, not overly scientific way to describe the plants and their habitats.I can't imagine most individuals would need a fieldguide type book that spans such a large area, that they would prefer something more targeted.This would be a good book if you were trying to incorporate more wildflowers into your garden from similar habitats outside of where you live. It also provides a nice introduction to habitats and endangered species, many of which deserve to be preserved.

I was hoping to find a similar book just on Asia but could not find one.What I really wanted was an English language book just on wildflowers in Japan. ... Read more

Product Description
More than 370 edible wild plants, plus 37 poisonous look-alikes, are described here, with 400 drawings and 78 color photographs showing precisely how to recognize each species. Also included are habitat descriptions, lists of plants by season, and preparation instructions for 22 different food uses. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (39)

A must have for New & Seasoned
As an herbalist teaching new students and helping them overcome their fears of using wild edibles and identifing herbs and edibles is a great pleasure with this book in hand. We have often went out and seen other plants, found it in the book and hurried back to the forest to find it again in person once we learned how unique it was. I have learned many more plants while performing botany in the field with this book. The pictures are very close up, so it does make identifing a challenge, but always use the guide in the front to learn how to use the book properly, except that what you call one name or think it would be, in the bological word of plants, that word has a whole other meaning. And the last of my advice, never assume that because a plant is catgoried under violet flowers that it couldn't possibly have a white or blue or whole other color bloom. Plants breed just like humans, thus causing genetic/DNA change and developing into a species of a species. An example: I have Butterfly Pea growing by my garden, the bloom is light lilac, not blue or purple and it grows a foot taller than the one described, but it is still beach butterfly pea, by the way, I live in Redclay North Carolina 255 miles Northeast from the beach.
A must have for anyone, period.

This is my main book.
I love this book and have been using it for about 10 years.The subject of edible wild plants is one that needs alot of study and I study this book even when I am not actually looking for the plants.I like the illustrations almost better than photgraphsthat some books have because the detail is better. The book is divided into flower color sections as well as terain sections and types of food sections.When I first identify a plant it is from the color of the flower so I use this section the most.Even though this book is written for the East Coast itstill identifies most of the edible plants that I see in the West.

A Very Helpful Guide
Although there are wild plants not found in this book, it would be difficult for one book to cover every single species in the area specified.This makes a perfect guide for beginners (which I am) and as a supplement with other information (books, internet, etc.)When consuming plants, it is always a good idea to check multiple sources to be sure one correctly identified a plant.This book opens a door to a whole new playground on which to explore and experiment...

Great book
It's great to look through and find plants you've seen all over place and finally put a name on it.

I can't wait to take it camping/hiking this summer!

Regretful buy
I'm really disappointed with this book. The black and white pictures aren't hardly as detailed as they should be for such poor, colorless representation of the plants. How in the WORLD am I supposed to accurately spot edible wild plants when the drawings are so lame?! I'm not stupid, I know how to utilize a book to my best advantage, and at most I would say you could use this book as a cross-reference but this would not be the only book I would take with me while foraging. I initially had doubts about this book when I looked at the negative reviews, but was optimistic. Now I wish I had chosen another book. Lame Lame Lame. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (2)

An excellent reference
I just love this book and would recommend it without hesitation. I find myself referring to it again and again. Anyone who loves the wildflowers of the prairie is sure to enjoy the in-depth information it contains.

Nice guide to some common prairie flowers
I bought this book because I was working in an Iowa prairie and wanted a good guide to the wildflowers.This is it!Large color photos are arranged by general blooming time/season.The text gives information about the plant, habitats, seasons, as well as some interesting folklore or other uses of the plant.This book certainly doesn't contain all flowering plants of the prairie, but it's a great start and a handy reference, especially for cross-referencing.Full-color photos are good, often showing both flowers and leaves. ... Read more

Product Description
From the dazzling orange of a Canada Lily to the sunshine yellow of a Prickly-pear, coloring your own field guide is the most enjoable way to learn about wildflowers. Each drawing is accompanied by a brief description that educates as it entertains. Place the new color stickers next to the drawings for a visual reference while coloring. Coloring the drawings helps reinforce the color, image, and shape of each wildflower, improving your memory and perception while offering a pleasant and easy way to learn. Fun for adults as well as children, beginning and experienced naturalists alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Wildflower line drawings
These are detailed line drawings that not only could be colored but can be traced and adapted for other craft activities just as I had hoped.

flower guide
All of the Peterson pocket guides are great...easy to use , colorfuland stick in a pocket easily.
I bought 6 different ones as a house warming gift and they LOVE them!
Diane

Very Portable
I am starting to amass a collection of the Peterson First Guides.They are light weight and very portable and the Wildflower guide is no exception.While it is smaller and contains less information than its larger cousins, it does exactly what it is marketed as.It seems very accurate, contains great drawings, and is an easy to use guide that I feel is primarily directed to casual observers.It works great for me.

Peterson First Guides: Wildflowers
This publication personally helped me become more familiar with the wildflowers. It includes specs and descriptions of 188 wildflowers. To start off the illustrations in this field guide are very realistic. The addition of color helps the reader to identify the flowers and plants as they are in the wild. I personally found it difficult when using other field guides to identify the differences between various species of flowers that were in the same family. This issue is even more magnified when trying to decipher the difference in the field. An example of this is in the description of Black-eyed Susan and Coneflower.

Excerpt from another field guide:

Black-eyed Susan (R. serotina) Flower head 2-4" wide. Stem leaves slightly toothed or entire: stem covered with bristly hairs. Disk blackish brown 1-2' high...
Showy Coneflower (R. speciosa) Flower head 2-4" wide. Stem leaves coarsely toothed or cleft: stem slightly hairy 1-4'high...

The pictures of both of these flowers are almost identical and make it difficult to differentiate the two visually. Without having a definite example of both flowers in front of you and cross examining the two it would be difficult to identify.

In Peterson's field guide you have arrows that point to key parts of the flower to accentuate the anatomical differences from its peers. The caption is also more informative. It gives some history on the plant along with the physical description.

Excerpt from Peterson's field guide:

Black-eyed Susan- In this showy composite, each daisy like flower, with its numerous golden-yellow rays and chocolate button, is carried singly on a slender bristly stalk. The leaves are also bristly or hairy. Although the Black-eyed Susan now grows in fields and open woods nearly throughout our area, it apparently was an early invader from the Midwest, reaching the Eastern Seaboard states among seeds of clover. The blooming season is from June to October...Coneflower has smaller more numerous flowers with fewer (8-10) rays its lower leaves have 3 lobes.

Peterson's guide uses a color directory system. Each page corner is marked with a color that coincides with the color of the flower. This makes locating a specific wildflower that you sighted very intuitive. The other field guides I compared it to have a unusual style directory. The reader must first grasp how to use the book in order to attain the information in it. This esoteric format gives them a steep learning curve.

Peterson's guide was succinct yet had a lot of information on the flowers that they featured. The only thing it lacked was the scientific names. Its small physical size made it an easy companion on the field. While the physical size of the book may not be a major concern, it is still an added bonus. It is small enough that if I happened to be doing something unrelated (ie. walking to the store) I could carry it with me and ID wildflowers that cross my path.
... Read more

Product Description
This essential guide to safety in the field features 90 venomous animals and more than 250 poisonous plants and fungi. The 340 line drawings make identification fast and simple; 160 species are also illustrated with color photographs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Would like to see more pictures..
I have a few of these field guide books. This isn't my favorite. It's ok but I would like to see more pictures in color (there are some.)

A Field Guide to Venomous Animals and Poisonous Plants
Keep this with you in your pack or camp.Good reference, easy to read.The examples, pictures and drawing are very useful.

Handy
I decided to get this book after my daughter broke out in a nasty Poison Oak rash. I had no idea we even had Poison Oak in our yard.
This book is very informative, but I wish it had more color pictures, especially of the poisonous plants.

Quickly Received in Great Condition
Product arrived as guaranteed, and the book delivered everything promised. Wish there were more color pictures of the actual plants; but overall, it's a GREAT field guide for someone just starting out in learning about what to avoid while hiking, camping, or just walking through the woods.

Don't harm snake on cover !!
My little brother just gave me this field guide. I was shocked to see a picture of a completely harmless Scarlet Kingsnake on the cover of a field guide to Venemous Animals.

I like the field guide, but please people, if you see the snake on the cover - understand it is a Kingsnake and completely harmless, not a Coral snake which is probably what they intended to have on the cover.

Coral snakes do not have red bands between two black bands, and the type of bands they have are quite different.

If you see a Coral snake, please don't kill it either - leave it alone, but especially do not kill a harmless Scarlet Kingsnake thinking it was a Coral snake. Hopefully the next edition will fix this embarrasing mistake. ... Read more

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Product Description

Customer Reviews (4)

Wildflowers of Wisconsin and the Great Lakes Region
Although the book is packed full of photos, they are too small to be of any use in identifying the plants in addition to the fact that the book is "too busy" trying to cover too much.There are many more useful and attractive wildflower guides available that should be considered for first time purchases.

Wildflowers of Wisconsin
Great reference book for wildflowers in the Great Lakes region, not just Wisconsin. Good color photographs of the flowers up close. Good addition when used with Peterson's Wildflower guide. They both cover a large amount of the wildflowers in this region.

you can't go wrong
A boon to all field botanists, both amateur and professional, this guide is essential when botanizing in the Upper Midwest. In Wisconsin, the range maps are so helpful in guiding one to the correct identification. And with so many species covered, it's hard to find something not covered by this book.

More than 1,100 species from 459 genera in 100 families of wildflower are covered
Now in an updated second edition, Wildflowers of Wisconsin and the Great Lakes Region is a full-color field guide packed with wildflower listings cover to cover. Each listing features a color photograph of the wildflower, and a brief information block concerning its size, description, fruit, status, a county graph of its geographic distribution in Wisconsin, and more. More than 1,100 species from 459 genera in 100 families of wildflower are covered in this excellent, user-friendly resource catalog.
... Read more

Product Description
There is no easy was to identify grasses. And no one understood this better than H.D. Harrington, who observed thousands of students struggle and learn. His clear, concise, and well-organized guide will continue to be a basic and essential text for use in the classroom or in the field. The book contains over 500 drawings and an illustrated glossary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Preparing to identify grasses & grasslike plants!
My review title should have been the title of this book. I for the most part agree with all reviews up until the date of this one. This book will not allow you to identify a grass in your yard to a species; however, what it will do is give you a thorough overview of techniques and terminology associated with identifying grasses, sedges and rushes. It contains an illustrated glossary that is very useful. You will however need another book to get descriptions of various species found in the U.S. or elsewhere.

A manual of grass biology definitions
This book is esentially a manual of definitions related to grass biology.If you read it cover to cover, you will not be able to identify any species of grass at all. If you have a book that gives the characteristics of various species for the purpose of identification - and that book uses terms like "gibbous" or mentions "carpels" or a "bearded lemma" as a characteristidc of a certain species, the definitions of those terms are given in this book.The whole book is esentially a glossery of grass terms with some line drawing illustrations of parts.Don't look for definitions or pictures for the words "Ryegrass", "Bluestem", or "Oats". They are not there.

The title is misleading!
Although the book title implies that if we use the book we will be able to identify different grasses, there isn't a shred of information it this book that will allow us to identify any grass species.The book seems to have been created for a class on grass biology.It has a lot of good pictures on the different parts of the grass plant.But for instance if we want to know what Big Bluestem grass looks like, or if we are looking at a plant and want to figure out what species it is, this book does not provide any of that information at all.If you are looking for a companion book to a class on grass biology, this book is great.If you want to try to identify grass species, this book is worthless without a lot of additional information.

Poor book
With this book, you will know all about how to identify a grass, and not be able to identify a single one. It reminds me of the new husband who sits on the edge of the bed and tells his new wife how wonderful it is going to be, but never gets around to it.
I returned the book.

Harrington Guides
There are a lot of plants that become colorful on the earth.
The plant that occupies the majority of Holocene place is a grasses and grasslike plants.
However, if it is not a specialist, the grasses and grasslike plant are not distinguished easily.
I am a farmer. The grasses and grasslikes were an annoying weed in me.
This book is a book that gave me new feeling to the grasses and grasslikes. It is not an interpretation weed in me any further any longer. I give my thanks to Doctor Harrington.

This book is as splendid as "Peterson first guides".
I call this book and "How to identify plants" "HARRINGTON MANUALS" !



... Read more

Product Description

Plants that trap and eat animals: an amazing phenomenon that has inspired awe since before the days of Darwin. The victims may be flies and butterflies, small crustaceans, or even vertebrates the size of rats.

Lured into the danger zone by optical, tactile, and olfactory strategies, the prey succumb to ingenious traps and face their doom. But unlike plants that temporarily catch insects for pollination, the true carnivores go considerably further: they digest them for the nutrients they need to survive in extremely inhospitable sites on land and in water.

Customer Reviews (3)

Carnivorous Plants Book
This book is fantastic. I was looking for a book with with the ecology of carnivorous plants, their physiology, and their cultivation. I got all the information I needed. :) Great book with great pictures.

The Best Comprehensive Guide to Carnivorous Plants
This book covers all the basic aspects of Carnivorous Plants from their taxonomy, through ecology, physiology and evolution to how to grow them. I would say it is the one essential text for all enthusiasts. The text is illustrated with many amazing photographs and micro-photographs. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It even makes a fascinating coffee table book for the uninitiated.

There are Better Carnivorous Plants Books than this one
I will give credit to the authors on a well researched, biologically detailed book that covers the different Carnivorous Plant families. I was looking forward to getting and reading this book but was disappointed after reciving it.

I feel this is a good introductory book on the topic so if you know nothing at all about Carnivorous Plants then a purchase may be all right for you. Most of the material in the book is found in other books of CPs. So if you have other books on CPs that you like, then this becomes redundant.

I am very spoiled by two books in my collection on the topic of CPs. The first is the SAVAGE GARDEN by Peter D'Amato, and the second is PITCHER PLANTS OF THE AMERICAS by Stewart McPherson.I recommend both of these instead of the one I'm reviewing. Between the two of these you should have all you need on cultivation, biology, evolutionary trends, and notes on many species of Carnivorous Plants. ... Read more

Product Description

This beautiful mix of art and science offers a breathtaking look at the way that contemporary scientific discoveries are changing our understanding of plants and plant evolution. Nearly one hundred and fifty paintings, by eighty-four artists, are reproduced in full color to present a sweeping overview of the evolution of plants worldwide. The paintings cover a wide range of plants, including ferns, fungi, conifers, algae, mosses, and a rich bounty of flowering plants; accompanying each painting is up-to-date evolutionary information—drawn from recent DNA analysis—plus observations by each of the artists and details about modern plant classification. Written for the nonspecialist, The Art of Plant Evolution is sure to enchant inquisitive green thumbs and gardeners.

Customer Reviews (2)

Fabulous art and exciting taxonomy
This is a wonderful book, with up to date information on plant classification and taxonomy based on DNA rather than visual relationships. The art illustrating the new relationships is fabulous. This is a must have for any serious botanist or botanical artist.

Art and science packaged to perfection
This is the type of book from which everyone can learn because of its "liberal arts" nature. The book lays out the current science of plant evolution but in a most interesting way. By putting stunning botanical art in a sequence parallel to evolutionary relationships, you begin to see the value of botanical art, not just as something lovely to look at, but as a learning tool for those interested in how plant anatomy relates to plant evolution. It is not a book intended for plant evolutionary biologists to get current with their field nor is it a primer for aspiring botanical artists. It would be shallow in that respect. That being said, it is not a "coffee table" book in the sense that you can thumb through it and put it down. It contains significant botanical content and enough text to learn not only about how plant relationships are established but how the artist themselves came into prominence. When all is said and done the price is one of the more amazing things. Over 300 thick giant pages of art and text - such a deal. For those of you thinking of cutting out the art for framing many of the plates are broken by the binder as they span two pages but the paper is thick enough that if you were ever so short-sighted as to get your scissors out at least the images that are on a single page do not show print from the back of the page. But please keep this book intact and enjoy it for a long time. What a great idea it was to join art and science in a way that everyone benefits. ... Read more

Product Description
This book is a helpful guide to identifying 500 species of Florida plant life, including rare as well as common wild flowers and characteristic trees, shrubs, vines, and ferns. Each description includes both common and scientific names, a range map, symbols to show the season of bloom, and a useful summary code of nine key plant, leaf, and flower characters, to aid in identification. With rich color photographs and brief, nontechnical notes to accompany each species, this handbook is a valuable reference for tourists, residents, students, and anyone interested in plants in all seasons of the year, from Pensacola to the Keys. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Excellent reference for amateur botanist
If the photo is not sufficient to quickly identify the plant, the descriptions are concise and tell you exactly what you need to know.Differences with similar species are often noted, along with blooming time and habitat.

Also, the author describes the different habitats in florida and if the plant is not native, the author calls that out.I very much enjoyed using this book in the field to identify plants.

Arrogant authors are looking down their noses
It is obvious that the authors have lost sight of the new flower lover they are tying to reach. Probably academics trying to impress otherselitists.The best books I have usedwhile learning flowers back in the coal regions,and later in the deserts of Arizona are those that have the flowers arranged by color.The other esoteric stuff can be in the body and the species cross referenced by key number, whatever.I agree with Dr. Weinberger, another critic.As a new comer to Florida, scouting flowers, or driving along the road, findinga new flower is exciting, but using the book for identification, is most frustrating. As it is the pages are a bit too slick for the traditional use relegated to old catalogs. As it is, I probably donate to some thrift store.`
I advise the authors to tear the pages out, group the flowers by color, add some reference code to relate it others of he same family and republish.I bet they will make a killing.I'll bemost honored to review the new book and more pleased to receive a complimentary copy

Photos not Adequate often to Identify Flowers!
In many cases (even when a plant we knew) the photos were not sufficiently detailed to IDENTIFY THE FLOWER OR PLANT!

Good Guide But Not the Most User-Friendly
The inside cover has a great chart on how to identify flowers (petal number, leaf shape, etc.).In the back it has an index that helps you narrow down which flower it is by starting with its color and then looking at its other character traits.I'm a beginner simply wanting to identify the wildflowers in my yard.It took me an hour to identify my first flower. I'm used to wildflower books that are divided by color.This guide isn't. It does have nice photographs and a simple description.

Gorgeous photographs, excellent information, easy to use
This book is a very useful guide to a large variety of Florida plants, as well as a superb collection of truly stunning photographs. It can be used for simple visual identification, but its organization by family and itsbinomial key make it user-friendly for the botanist as well. ... Read more

Product Description
The essential guide to Cape Cod's natural botanical heritage. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lovely and informative
This beautiful book should be in the library of anyone who loves the open spaces on Cape Cod.It is packed wiht information that can't be found elsewhere.And that information is authoritative--the authors are botanists who really do know what they are talking about. ... Read more

Product Description
California's unique plants range in size from the stately Coast Redwoods to the minute belly plants of the southern deserts and in age from the four-thousand year-old Bristlecone Pines to ephemeral annuals whose life span can be counted in weeks. Available at last in a thoroughly updated and revised edition, this popular book is the only concise overview of the state's remarkable flora, its plant communities, and the environmental factors that shape them.

* 188 color photographs illustrate plants and typical plant communities around the state

* New chapters give expanded discussions of the evolution of the California landscape, recent changes in California's flora, and more

* Introduces basic concepts of plant taxonomy and plant ecology through clear examples and covers topics such as soil, climate, and geography ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A brief comment
I have a 20-year old edition of this book and quite simply it is the best general introduction to California plant life I have seen. Without getting too technical, Prof. Ornduff introduces the reader to the many faces of California's diverse plant species. The discussions are organized by type of ecology, and if I remember right, two or three dozen different ones get treated.

California is a land where geology often takes precedence over even climate and weather in determining which plants grow where, such as in the serpentine barrens, which produce very nutrient poor soils and support very few species, although many are unique to that substrate and are found only in California. Rocky cliffs, vernal pools or "hog wallows," and California's several deserts are other examples, and these geological influences are one thing that makes the study of its plants so interesting and rewarding.

After reading this book, I highly recommend Introduction to California Soils and Plants: Serpentine, Vernal Pools, and Other Geobotanical Wonders (California Natural History Guides) by Arthur R. Kruckeberg, which discusses the soil-plant interface in even more detail. Both books are superb and really complement each other, so after reading Ornduff's book, I recommend that you get Kruckeberg's volume, which takes the discussion of the relationship between soils and plants in California even further.

Before reading Kruckeberg's book, it helps to have read at least a basic text on geology with a good introductory chapter on igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic petrology, and also basic minerology and soil geology. If you remember some of your high school or college inorganic chemistry that will be of use too, although a little goes a long way here and you probably won't have to reread your chemistry text if you don't want to. :-) I don't recall that much of my chemistry, although I did remember enough of my geology courses to find them useful in reading this book.

Last but not least, the author writes with a great deal of enthusisasm and excitement about what is still a somewhat obscure area of botany, and his obvious enthusiasm and enjoyment of the subject is contagious. The book is printed on very high quality glossy paper with a good binding, and overall I think it's an excellent value at 19 bucks. ... Read more

Product Description
Along the San Marcos River, in and surrounding Palmetto State Park in south central Texas, lie more than five square kilometers of relict ecosystem known as the Ottine Wetlands. A lowland counterpart of the Lost Pines, this rich and fascinating area of swamps, marshes, and ponds is situated on the 98th meridian--the biogeographical divide separating the eastern plants and animals of the United States from their western counterparts--and also along a similar ecological boundary separating subtropical species from their more northern, temperate counterparts.
A companion to the authors' Invertebrates of Central Texas Wetlands, this volume describes the plants of this important but little-studied region.
The authors have catalogued more than 500 species, ranging from mosses and liverworts to flowering plants, gleaned from published and unpublished reports, collection records, and their own extensive exploration of the park and surrounding private properties. Photographs and detailed descriptions of more than 275 species aid in field recognition; for those species not treated in the text, checklists are provided.
An in-depth introductory chapter covers the region's geology and soils, climate, postglacial history, plant communities, and biogeography and also serves as a guide to Palmetto State Park and its easily accessible nature trails. An extensive bibliography, glossary, and index round out the volume.
Scientific researchers and nature enthusiasts alike will appreciate this expert guide to one of the nation s most distinctive ecosystems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

missing pages
The service from Amazon is excellent.There are pages missing toward the back of this book and some are mixed up. But rather going to the trouble of sending it back I kept it.

not as comlpletely illustrated as I had hoped for
We have been searching for a guide to wildflowers specifically for New York State and this is the first such book we have found.While it does show and describe at least 350 varieties, we have found 2 wildflowers sofar on our own property that do not seem to be in this book.The colorphotos show the flowers of the plant clearly but we feel that there shouldhave been more effort to include the leaves of the plant in the photo or apencil and ink drawing of the leaf next to the photo.The writtendescription of each plant inlcudes a description, i.e. basal, etc. of theleaf and the plant growth but this is rather difficult to understand wherea photo or drawing would have been easier. ... Read more

Product Description
Since 1987, when Texas Parks and Wildlife Department botanists published their first in-house summary of Texas' threatened plants, more than 225 species have been identified and described as endangered, imperiled, or declining. Because most of these plants are too rare to be mentioned, much less pictured, in standard field guides, only a handful of botanists have known what these plants or their habitats look like.

Complete with photographs, line drawings, and county maps, this book describes the officially listed, candidate, and species-of-concern plants in Texas. Individual accounts include information on distribution, habitat, physical description, flowering time, federal and state status, similar species, and published references. The authors also provide brief introductory chapters on the state's vegetation regions; the history of plant conservation in Texas; federal, state, and other ranking methods; threats to native plants; recovery methods; and reporting guidelines.

With the growing recognition that native plants support wildlife, conserve water, promote biodiversity, and exemplify our natural heritage, we must also recognize the need for greater understanding of endangered plants, the threats to their existence, and the importance of their survival. Rare Plants of Texas is highly recommended for professional botanists and advanced researchers, conservationists, students, range managers, and others concerned with preserving the ecosystems of Texas and the Southwest. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Reviewing: Rare Plants of Texas
Recently released by Texas A&M University Press this reference guide is a comprehensive and detailed look at the rare plants of Texas. While useful for the layman, the book is primarily of interest for botanists and others deeply immersed in the subject matter. As such, the book is highly technical in nature and written in a dry academic tone.

After a brief preface and an acknowledgment section, there is a multi page section on the various natural regions of Texas. Filled with facts and figures and a single solitary map of the state that contains no reference points, this section goes into detail about the land mass and various types of plants typically found in the 11 regions. It is noted here and elsewhere in this book that rare species are still being found today in Texas as much of the state has not been surveyed in the manner required to note and document everything.

Sections on the history of planet conservation as well as a section on the law and terms being used as well as another section on the threats to rare plants which are primarily human related follow the natural regions section.This is followed by sections on "Management and Restoration of Rare Plants" and "Nomenclature and Species Selection."Quickly followed by instructions for and a copy of the official "Wildlife Diversity Reporting Form" issued by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to report a rare plant, animal or habitat that will be verified before being added to the wildlife diversity database.

This leads readers to the heart of the book "Species Treatments" which begins on page 55. Each plant is depicted in a drawing, a color picture, and located on the country map of Texas. Each plant has listed various facts such as scientific name, common name, family name, endangered status date, where it lives, and a detailed description of the plant, habitat of the plant, and comments and references on the plant.Listed in alphabetical order each plant is detailed across two pages with many plants depicted in multiple color photographs and ink drawings.

Beginning on page 521 there is a short section on what was excluded from this book and why. That leads to a very detailed glossary of terms and a seventy-nine page reference section. This field guide type book concludes with an extensive index of thirteen pages.

This is a comprehensive book and is a well done reference guide that should be of interest to the professional as well as the general layman interested in the field. Certainly it isn't of interest for everyone and it was not designed to be as it is highly technical in nature. Therefore, those with a deep interest in the topic will appreciate it the most. For that readership it was designed for, it works well and provides a glimpse of the many rare plants found across the great state of Texas.


Kevin R Tipple (copyright) 2008


... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Awesome pictures
Great shots of some of the rarest endemic plants.Very helpfull with plant id.

Great Book!
Great book!Used a lot when I have traveled to Maui a few times.

Book was lovely.
I was pleased with the book I ordered. It didn't have as many flowers in it as I had hoped, but I did enjoy reading it. ... Read more

Product Description
"Wildflowers of Ohio" is a very user friendly guide to the identification and characteristics of 287 of Ohio's common wildflowers. Each flower is presented in a full-color photograph showing it in its natural habitat. The photos are accompanied by a concise but detailed text about the plant's life and its relationship to the environment. There are brief descriptions of the field characteristics, comments about the plant's biology and its uses by humans, the range of distribution in Ohio, habitat, and blooming period. Anyone interested in the out of doors and its natural wonders who lives in Ohio or neighboring states will benefit from this lovely regional field guide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Outstanding Field guide
The color photos in this guide make identification very easy. The text compliments the great photography. All in all a very easy field guide to use.

Great Book for Ohioans and others
A must for all nature lovers! The pictures of the wildflowers are excellent. What we know as weeds are really wildflowers. Many of them have medicinal qualities. But you'd need another book for that.
Excellent reference whether out for a walk in the wild or in your own yard.

Wildflowers of Ohio
This purse size,pocket size dynamo of information is a "must have" for flower lovers; wild or domestic! Photos are real enough to touch!

Perfect book for quickly checking on new flowers
I love this book.I keep it in the door pocket in my car so I can return from a hike or outing and check it anytime.I really appreciate the way the flowers are organized in the book to easily find the one I need, and the descriptive info is always interesting. It's made me much more aware of the native vs. imported wildflowers, with many surprises there.A terrific book for the interested outdoors person.Just wish I could find a similar book for nearby states and for wildlife, trees, birds, etc.

My primary reference for area wildflowers
This is the first book I pick up when identifying wildflowers of Ohio. The information is complete and entertaining, as well, with interesting notations regarding the history of many of the plants. The beautiful photos make it easy to recognize most of the flowers in the field immediately. I recommend this book as a useful and enjoyable way to learn about regional wildflowers. ... Read more

Product Description
With some 6,000 species of plants, Texas has extraordinary botanical wealth and diversity. Learning to identify plants is the first step in understanding their vital role in nature, and many field guides have been published for that purpose. But to fully appreciate how Texas's native plants have sustained people and animals from prehistoric times to the present, you need Remarkable Plants of Texas. In this intriguing book, Matt Warnock Turner explores the little-known facts--be they archaeological, historical, material, medicinal, culinary, or cultural--behind our familiar botanical landscape. In sixty-five entries that cover over eighty of our most common native plants from trees, shrubs, and wildflowers to grasses, cacti, vines, and aquatics, he traces our vast array of connections with plants. Turner looks at how people have used plants for food, shelter, medicine, and economic subsistence; how plants have figured in the historical record and in Texas folklore; how plants nourish wildlife; and how some plants have unusual ecological or biological characteristics. Illustrated with over one hundred color photos and organized for easy reference, Remarkable Plants of Texas can function as a guide to individual species as well as an enjoyable natural history of our most fascinating native plants. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good reference -- limited use
This is a great reference book for students of Horticulture in Texas.The descriptions will help identify introduced and native plants of Texas.The book is of limited use for most gardeners, unless they are trying to I.D. a specific plant, and do not want much useful information as to it's use in their garden.

Remarkable Plants of Texas
We liked this book so much that we purchased THREE copies!Well written, interesting background and history of various Texas plants.Recommend highly.

An interesting, and fun, change from the usual botanical books
I bought this book recently and already love it. Besides being very well-written and steeped in interesting facts I never knew about Texas plants, the point of the book is both unusual and fun. Instead of focusing heavily on the "plant identification guide" style of writing (though there are excellent four-color pictures that help you do that), Dr. Turner sets out on a more ambitious goal...to tell the story of each plant and what makes it special to the Texan (and general botanical) landscape, whether it is how the Native American tribes used it, how it connects in unusual ways to the natural world, etc. Each story stands alone but you will find ways in which they interconnect, as well, telling the story of the earliest settlers and beyond. Kudos to this rare gem of a plant book. I have already bought a second copy as a gift to my godmother, who loves Texas plants herself. ... Read more

Product Description
There has always been interest in how animals live their lives --- it is easy for us to identify with them. But there are many remarkable stories about plants that deserve to be told. The Nature of Plants tells how plants adapt to the challenges of their habitats. Plants may live in places that provide too little rainfall, yet they thrive, either by evading drought, like the animals that live in deserts, or by tolerating the scarcity. There are plants that use other plants, climbing on them, strangling some, living in their leafy canopies, or parasitizing them. And The Nature of Plants explores the love-hate relationships that plants have with animals, some feeding on plants but others drawn into serving plants by pollinating them, scattering their fruits and seeds, or being eaten themselves. The mostly hidden associations that plants have with bacteria and fungi are also revealed. Illustrated throughout with superb color photographs, it is written in a way that is clear to anyone who wishes to understand the life of plants. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A brief comment
As my fellow Top 50 reviewer, Dennis Littrell, has already said it better than I, I just wanted to add a brief comment, mainly because a few years ago I once spent a wonderful three weeks travelling around New Zealand observing its plant and animal life, and many of the examples of plants in the photos are from this country, since one of the authors is from there, and I've seen much of New Zealand's fascinating and diverse fauna and flora myself.

As Dennis mentions, the photographs are superb, along with the well written and interesting text. The book is not just about the local flora however, as the author discusses interesting and important plants from around the world.

One major difference between the ecologies of the northern and southern hemisphere is that conifers forests dominate the north, whereas the large climax trees in the south, especially in South American and New Zealand, are southern hemisphere hardwood beech trees, of which there are a number of species. Although not as tall or as massive as the sequoias and redwoods of the Pacific Coast, they can still grow to over 200 feet in height.

Interestingly, 60 million years ago the giant sequoias and redwoods were circumpolar and once dominated the whole northern hemisphere boreal forests, but today are restricted to just a few strips of land in California and Oregon. No one knows why such huge and seemingly invulnerable trees as sequioas, which can have bark several feet thick, can hardly be killed by fire, are impervious to insects because of their thick and tannic acid rich bark, and which are the largest living things, have been dying off.

Although, as I said, the book isn't just about New Zealand plant life, I have to add a fascinating tidbit about that. New Zealand is a very rainy and wet country mostly, especially in the south (Milford Sound is the rainest place in the world at sea level with 28 feet of rain per year, about the same as the top of Mt. Kilauea in Hawaii, but that's at 14,000 feet). In fact, it's almost unremittingly green, because there are few plants with colored flowers there. There are a few exceptions, such as the well known "New Zealand Christmas Tree," metrosideros excelsea, which has red flowers, but it's the exception. Most have white flowers because they are fertilized by night flying moths. Colored flowers are actually for bees, and New Zealand broke off and separated from the original supercontinent before bees evolved, hence the reliance of many New Zealand plants on moths. I found this quite interesting and only learned it after I'd arrived on the island, although I was partly trained as a botanist in college and grad school.

Overall, a wonderfully illustrated and well written book on the diversity of plant life on this increasingly ecologically fragile planet of ours, and a truly beautiful and diverse one botanically that hopefully some of which will survive the locust plague of our species centuries hence.

A beautiful book
Most of the color photographs are by co-author Rob Lucas.They are just sumptuous--stunning even--and carefully chosen, and illustrative of the great diversity of plant life on earth.There is a slight bias in favor of the unique biota of New Zealand which is understandable since Lucas is from New Zealand.He and his colleague, UC Berkeley botany PhD John Dawson, have written several books on the flora of New Zealand, one of which won the Natural Heritage Prize.This book too ought to win some sort of prize since it is so gorgeously illustrated, so engagingly written, and so carefully edited.

They take the widest possible focus in introducing the reader to plants from around the world and from many different habitats, from deserts to swamps, from the Arctic to the Amazon.They begin in the first chapter, "The Freeloaders: Plants Using Plants," with parasitic plants such as the tree-dwelling epiphytes, of which the familiar mistletoe is an example.This sets the tone for the book, the idea being to show how plants make a living in the world and how they interact with other plants and with animals, and how they meet the challenges of their environments.In other words, as the title has it, the authors explain and illustrate "The Nature of Plants."As such this book is an excellent introduction to the nontechnical aspects of botany, giving the reader the sort of information about plants that would especially appeal to weekend gardeners and others (like myself) who love plants but have had no academic training in botany.

However, this is no "plants for dummies" sort of book.Scientific nomenclature is used throughout, and precise numbers about plant sizes and other aspects of their lives, including rainfall and temperatures, are given in both metric terms and US equivalents.References are made to more comprehensive academic tomes, and there is a glossary of specialized terms.

Here is a short notice of facts that I found especially interesting:

It is well known that fire can be the catalyst for the germination of some kinds of seeds, and indeed, there are seeds that germinate only after a fire.On page 136 the authors explain that "In some pines, the tips of the woody scales of the cones are glued together with resin.Fire melts the resin, and the scales are able to separate."

They also report that "it has been discovered that smoke alone can break the dormancy of seeds of many heathland species in South Africa and Australia."Even more surprising is that in the chaparral in California (where I have hiked many times) "It is believed that some of the shrubs manufacture toxins that leach into the soil with rain and inhibit the germination of seeds.Fire destroys these toxins, and the seeds then germinate abundantly.In following years, the herbs steadily diminish as shading increases and toxins from the shrubs build up in the soil." ( p. 135)

We have all heard of a swarm (or "plague") of locusts, but the one the authors describe here is truly incredible: "One such swarm," they write, "in eastern Africa was described as being more than 30 m (100) feet deep on a front 1.6 km (1 mile) wide that took 9 hours to pass by."Imagine that you are a poor farmer with a crop just ready for harvest, and then the locusts descend.What could you do?(p. 207)

By the way, there is an amazingly beautiful photo on the opposite page (206) of a cabbage tree moth on a dead cabbage tree leaf illustrating not only the moth's camouflage but some of the incredible beauty that nature is capable of.The colors are fantastic.As lovers of flowers know, no chemist can match the ability of nature to produce color in such vivid and arresting hues.

As I was reading this and admiring the beautiful photos I couldn't help but think about plants as our benefactors, and to marvel at how they have come to an accommodation (in some cases a clear symbiosis) with the pesky animals that want to eat them, and how they have in many cases learned to use the animals to their advantage as pollinators and seed dispersers.It gives me hope for humankind to think that if plants can make such clever give-and-take arrangements (without a hint of rancor) with those who would be their enemies, surely we can do the same with our fellow humans. ... Read more