Identifying Plants by Family and Genus

About the Book

If you've ever tried to identify plants using a typical wildflower guide, you know how frustrating and time-consuming it can be.  Leafing through a book, trying to find a picture that matches your plant, is not an effective way to learn.

Instead, the first thing one must do in order to identify plants is to learn to see, to learn what to look for.  To see plants you must know the parts of plants, the shapes that those parts come in, and the ways that they are arranged.

Identifying Plants by Family and Genus teaches, specifically, how to look at plants and how to classify them.  It uses the taxonomic knowledge botanists have developed, dividing plants into families and genera that are recognized around the world, but it presents that knowledge in a simple and straightforward way than anyone can understand.

In the first chapter the reader learns some of the terms that botanists use to describe plants and the parts of plants.  Then about 80 of the most common families in the western United States are described, and over 400 of their most important genera.  The book also includes keys - guides that assist the reader in identifying any particular plant quickly.  And it is profusely illustrated with some 450 drawings.

If you read this guide with care and actually use it to identify plants, you will then be able to recognize many families and genera of plants throughout the country, and even throughout the world.  You will be aware of some of the differences and similarities, the complexity and the order, of the green half of nature.

About the Author

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