Book Description

Secondary pollen presentation is presentation of pollen to vectors by structures other than anthers, either passively or via a specialized protection and delivery system. The main part of the book describes secondary pollen presentation genus-by-genus in 25 families. The subject has never been extensively reviewed, although secondary pollen presentation occurs in the largest family of flowering plants, the Asteraceae (Compositae), and a large family of great economic importance, the Leguminosae. Now material from the scattered literature is brought together and supplemented with original observations. Many species are illustrated and each family is individually discussed. The last two chapters provide an overview of the whole topic. All the main functions that secondary pollen presentation may perform can be carried out in other plants without it. It is concluded from this that the evolution of secondary pollen presentation has been subject to constraint and canalization. The floral biology of most plants with secondary pollen presentation has not been adequately studied. Appendix 1 points to a wide range of topics on which research at various technical and academic levels is needed. The book should also become a reference work for morphologists, systematists, and floral ecologists. ... Read more

Book Description

Rumphius (1627-1702), founder of Indonesian botanical exploration and one of the greatest naturalists of the seventeenth century, was the first to describe tropical orchids in a Western language. Within the pages of his monumental seven-volume Ambonese Herbal, written in Dutch, he included descriptions of thirty-six species of orchids found on the island of Ambon in eastern Indonesia, plus twelve uncertified ones. His detailed descriptions reflect both the accuracy of a scientist and the sensibility of a poet. This lovely book is the first to gather and translate into English all the sections of Rumphius’ The Ambonese Herbal devoted to orchids.

For each entry, Rumphius describes the plant, names it according to a pre-Linnaean system of nomenclature, gives its locality, and details its medicinal and non-medicinal uses. More than twenty beautiful line drawings accompany the entries. The volume includes ample notes to illuminate the text and an informative introduction that tells the life of Rumphius—a remarkable collector/naturalist who overcame fire, shipwreck, and blindness to produce his masterwork. ... Read more

Book Description

With its pretty paintings and delicate line drawings, this facsimile of a lovely botanical guide from 1904 captures all the charm of an earlier era--and yet remains wonderfully informative today. You'll treasure this for the closely rendered images, but it will still assist you in identifying flowers or fruits by color, as well as the butterflies, bumblebees, and other insects so important to their propagation.Proceed according to family, through the cattails and the burweed, the water plantains (including white and yellow arrowheads), the handsome lilies (among them the large pink trillium), the crowroots (golden marsh marigolds and tall buttercups), roses, and many more flowers of the field. All include growing season, description, and other vital facts. Whether you want to recognize what you see as you wander through a meadow or simply want a beautiful book to show off, this rarity is sure to please.
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Reviews (1)

DiscoverthebeautifulworldofMDI'sflowers.
Thisisanexcellentreferencebookforboththecasualflowerwatcherorbotanist.Theplantsandflowersareillustrated withcolorphotoshelpingtoeaseconfusionbetweenspecies.Theone problemisthatthephotosdonotappearnextto the textwhich leadstoextrapageflipping.Anindexwouldalsobeuseful. Thisisawellresearched,usefulandattractivebook. ... Read more

Book Description

The Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants represents the first comprehensive taxonomic treatment of succulents in thirty years. It covers over 9000 taxa of all succulents except Cactaceae. This up-to-date work is ideally suited for anyone interested in these fascinating plants, including hobbyists, plant scientists, horticulturalists and herbarium staff.Members of the iceplant family Aizoaceae are appreciated by farmers for their browsing stock. Hobbyists like to grow the stone plants and tourists enjoy the flowering of annuals. This first complete treatment of the leaf-succulent family Aizoaceae includes an inventory of 136 accepted genera of the 234 described ones and of all species ever placed in the family. Almost 800 colour photographs illustrate mainly rarely shown species. ... Read more

Book Description

A photographic guide to 200 wildflower species from the Central Valley near Sacramento, west up to the peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Each species has at least one photograph, a description and notes on its distribution, native and modern uses and similar species. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Not a book for serious naturalists
The book is well organized and has the appearance of being handy, but is seriously incomplete. I'm a botanist, with research in the Sierra, and have tried several different resources in the field. Many plant species, common throughout the Sierra, have no mention in the book. If you happen across a plant that is covered by the book, the information is usually good, but what good is the book if most plants are not covered? Many photo-based field guides exclude the vast majority of species, because it's too costly and unfeasible to publish a book that thorough. However, a photo-based field guide should at least include all the most common species, which is where I believe this book falls short.

A beautifully illustrated and easy to use guide
Although I own and use many wildflower identification books, most are lacking in some respect...organization, quality of photographs, etc. I stumbled across this book at a State Park ranger station shop, and was immediately impressed with the excellent quality photographs and the organization of information. The introduction contains much valuable data about elevational zones and where to find the flowers. There's a Quick Key of tiny photographs to steer you to the plant family and page number where you'll find the flower in question. I'm recommending this guide to all my friends. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Good Book For The Beginner
Information about pressing and storing flowers, pressing techniques and enhancing color, by a natural technique of "piggybacking" one or two flowers onto another, for added dimension. The emphasis is on methods of design; a good book for a beginner. Illustrated, 48 pages, hardcover. ... Read more

Book Description

This guide to more than 1,000 varieties of tree species is arranged in easy-to-use format. Leaf and stem silhouettes help direct the user to the correct species, and full color photographs make identification that much easier. ... Read more

Book Description

This authoritative guide showcases the unmatched beauty and diversity of the native orchids of the southern Appalachian mountains. Based on Stanley Bentley's many years of nature study, it covers the 52 species--including one discovered by Bentley and named after him--found in a region encompassing western Virginia and North Carolina and eastern West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

The entry for each orchid provides the plant's scientific and common names, a description of the flower (including color, shape, and size), and information on the time of flowering, range, and typical habitat, all in the context of the southern mountains. A range map accompanies each description, and Bentley's own superb photographs are an additional aid to identification.

Using straightforward language yet incorporating the most up-to-date scientific information and nomenclature, the book will be welcomed by amateur naturalists or professional botanists looking for species in the field and by those who simply enjoy photographs of beautiful wildflowers. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

As Beautiful As the Orchids
This turns out to be an outstanding book and I'm very happy to have it. The text is pleasant to read, written in a friendly and personal way. The pictures are crisp and beautiful, and laid out nicely alongside the text for easy access while reading the description. One outstanding feature is the detailed habitat information based on the author's years of field experience in observing the habitats of each of these orchids. Another stand-out is that the author has done the photography himself, resulting in pictures that support and complement the text very well. I checked several books on orchids and wildflowers while trying to identify an orchid in my forest (which turns out to be a lily-leaved twayblade), and I found this book to be the best. In summary, I'm impressed with this book. I hope it will set a new standard for other books on regional wildflowers. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

My thoughts on "THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS"
Ever since I was a little child, flowers have always been one of my favorites of all God's creation. I think of them as the expression of serenity, beauty, and God's glory. I have thought that flowers have their own language; they just feel like it. So upon just seeing the title of this book, I fell in love with it.

It was a little book--not intimidating in size, and seemed like a book for someone who loves gentle, quiet, beautiful things. Lovely drawings of blooming flowers were intertwined into each page. The printing was like a country mother's journal handwriting, and the pictures like ones that would hang in a breezy country home. The dedication note from the author to her mother was sweet and loving, and was followed by a short, yet intriguing poem. The rest of the pages in the book were made up of a charming alphabetical list of the names of flowers, followed by what they mean or represent. Their meanings expressed the emotion their scent and color evokes in the mind of the viewer.

I found this book to be full of wholesome, clean information, completely non-offensive; and its words were metaphors of love in themselves. I recommend this book highly to anyone who finds flowers beautiful and interesting, and wants to find words to describe what flowers say. It is also good for anyone who wants to plant flowers according to their symbolic meanings. This book receives an A+ from me, and is a definite must-have for flower-lovers of all ages. ... Read more

Book Description

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

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

Book Description

* Includes 80 of the best-loved wildflowers and eight pages of new photos

* Compact and easy to use with spiral binding

* Over 27,000 copies of previous editions sold

Expansive and stunning, the Rocky Mountains stretch from New Mexico to the Canadian border and are home to myriad varieties of beautiful wildflowers.The 80 most common are identified in this handy, pack-perfect book, which is organized by the wildflower's color, shape, and alphabetically by common name.Hikers will love how fun and easy it is to identify the wildflowers of the Rockies with this handy-dandy book. ... Read more

Book Description

Forest Wildflowers, the second in a three-book series on wildflowers of the northern Rocky Mountains, is an invaluable and convenient pocket guide for hikers, travelers, and all amateur botanists, as well as teacher, range managers and other experts. The author of Forest Wildflowers groups, pictures, and describes each wildflower according to family. Technical terminology has been kept to a minimum, and line drawings, a picture glossary, and a glossary of botanical terms help identify species quickly and accurately. For any nature-lover who has asked, "What flower is that?" Forest Wildflowers holds the answer. ... Read more

Book Description

For seventy years, The Natural Gardens of North Carolina has been a must-read volume for anyone interested in wildflowers, native plants, ecology, or conservation in the state. This handsome revised edition features new line drawings and color photographs, an appendix that updates the botanical nomenclature, an introduction that focuses on B. W. Wells and his passion for the state's landscape, and an afterword that discusses the continuing relevance of Wells's ideas.

One of the first scientists to write and lecture about ecology, Wells introduced North Carolinians to the extraordinary tapestry of "natural gardens," or plant communities, within the state's borders back in 1932. His purpose was to help readers understand a plant within its community--a pioneering concept at the time--and to promote conservation. Moving from the Atlantic coast westward, Wells identifies eleven major natural gardens: the sand dune community, salt marsh, freshwater marsh, swamp forest, aquatic vegetation, evergreen shrub bog (or pocosin), grass-sedge bog (or savanna), sandhill, old-field community, upland forest, and high mountain spruce-fir forest. He devotes the first part of his book to a general account of the vegetation and habitats of each community and then identifies and describes the wildflowers that are found there. ... Read more

Book Description

This is the first full-length monograph on Galanthus since 1956 and represents the most comprehensive study undertaken on the genus. The work documents the eighteen species, their subspecies and varieties, and describes the most important of the more than 500 named cultivars. The introductory chapters deal with the taxonomic history, morphology, anatomy, cytology, pollination, ecology, conservation, and cultivation. The main emphasis is the taxonomy chapter, which provides a new classification for the genus and gives detailed information on each of the species. The cultivars chapter consists of concise accounts of the better known and more widely available cultivars and those that have been recorded in literature. Precise maps clearly show the distribution of each species. ... Read more

Book Description

What are Penstemons, anyway?Answer:Members of the beautifuland hearty snapdragon family, they make up the largest genus offlowering plants native to North America, with about 272 species.Withhigh-quality, full color photos, this authoritative field guides makesit easy to identify the 80 species of Penstemons found in Washington,Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.Includes technical line drawings for eachspecies and a range map showing where each is found. ... Read more