Flowering plants provide a welcome and colourful sight, whether long-loved shrubby perennials or bright and fleeting annuals. They are vital to our ecology and a clear indication of the health of the countryside.
A stunning expert guide to the most significant wild flowers, trrees, shrubs, herbs, cacti, grasses, mosses, aquatic plants and weeds of the world, beautifully illlustrated with 1700 botanical artworks, photographs and maps.
This lavishly illustrated and accessible reference book provides a comprehensive guide to the world of wild flowers and flora--including trees, shrubs, herbs, cacti, weeds, grasses, aquatic plants abd mosses. An expertly written introduction explains what wild flowers are, and how they are classified. Detailed annotated illustrations show how to recognize the dirrerent parts of a plant, including petals, buds, fruit, seeds and stigma. The role of each of these plays in the life of the plant is explained, and the diversity of leaf and flower form, shape, structure and plant habit are discussed as key features of plant identification. Wild flowers survive and proliferate in many differing landscapes, from desert scrub, heaths, mountains and moors to hedgrows, sand dunes, riversides and lakeland. The main features of each of these habitats are described in full. Next, there is a lavishly illustrated encyclopedia arranged according to geographic region. The flowers are grouped within plant families, and the key features of each are described. For enery entry, information is given on flower coloration, size and shape, stem height and spread, leaf size and shape and number of flower per flowerhead, as well as details of its environment and the pollinator. With more than 1700 wonderful illustrations, maps and photographs, this richly illustrated to the world's flora provides a comprehensive reference book to be used by the whole family.--Front book flap.
The European Garden Flora is the definitive manual for the accurate identification of cultivated ornamental flowering plants. Designed to meet the highest scientific standards, the vocabulary has nevertheless been kept as uncomplicated as possible so that the work is fully accessible to the informed gardener as well as to the professional botanist. This new edition has been thoroughly reorganised and revised, bringing it into line with modern taxonomic knowledge. Although European in name, the Flora covers plants cultivated in most areas of the United States and Canada as well as in non-tropical parts of Asia and Australasia. Volume 5 completes the series, and includes many important ornamental families, such as Labiatae, Solanaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Acanthaceae, Campanulaceae, and the largest family of Dicotyledons, the Compositae.
Now available in paperback, The Secrets of Wildflowers is destined to be an indispensable book for anyone who loves and admires the natural world. Few things in nature beautify the world more than wildflowers. Their countless colors and endless designs are found almost anywhere—from fields to woods, deserts to ponds, and even in junkyards, dumps, and cracks in the pavement. The Secrets of Wildflowers, Jack Sanders’s colorful tribute, is bursting with odd facts and wonderful superstitions about some of North America’s most beautiful and common plants. Reader's will find natural history, folklore, habitats, horticulture, ingenious uses past and present, origins of names, and even their literary pedigrees. Far richer and eminently more varied than any field guide, The Secrets of Wildflowers contains more than 100 species of North American wildflowers organized by blooming seasons. Wildflowers are not just pretty to look at; they are an essential part of our environment. How they grow and what they do are often overlooked, and how they have been used has largely been forgotten. They feed insects, birds, animals, and even humans. They hold and condition the soil, and they are used in modern medicines and natural remedies and appear throughout history in art and literature. The Secrets of Wildflowersprovides detailed information on more than one hundred representative species of North American wildflowers.