Product Description

This classic botanical handbook, originally compiled by the late William S. Justice and C. Ritchie Bell, pairs color photographs with descriptions of the wild flowers and flowering trees, shrubs, vines, herbs, and weeds found in North Carolina and many other eastern states, from Delaware to Georgia. Entries include information on habitat, range, size, months of bloom, and features for identification. For this new edition, Bell and Anne H. Lindsey have included 100 additional species and expanded the information in previous entries to address developments in the field of plant conservation, providing comments on endangered and protected species, medicinal uses, the cultivation of species in a wild garden, and the commercial availability of nursery-grown natives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #823792 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-30
• Released on: 2005-05-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From the Inside Flap
This popular field guide contains full-color photographs of wildflowers, trees, shrubs, vines, herbs, and weeds; it also describes habitat, range, size, months of bloom, and features. Covers the Carolinas, Virginia, and parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. The new edition indludes 100 additional species and addresses new developments in the field.

About the Author
The late William S. Justice, a well-known photographer and field botanist, practiced medicine in Asheville, North Carolina. C. Ritchie Bell, professor emeritus of botany at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and founder of the North Carolina Botanical Garden, is coauthor of Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas and Florida Wild Flowers and Roadside Plants.

Bell and his wife, Anne H. Lindsey, are owners of Laurel Hill Press, which produces natural history guides, videos, and DVDs.

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive, colorful guide, but hard to use
This guidebook to wild flowers in North Carolina has about 500 species illustrated, each with a description and a small photograph of the flower and plant. The guide deserves high marks for the number of species included and the scholarship which went into describing each by location, blooming date, and other information. Brief tidbits concerning medicinal uses, edibiity, and folklore of the plant are included in many descriptions. Indexed are both scientific and common names of each plant.

However, the guide is nearly worthless for the field identification of flowers. There needs to be some sort of key or pattern to help with identification. There seems no rhyme nor reason I can discern with the order in which the flowers are described. It would be a lot better if the flowers were grouped by blooming date and color, e.g. yellow flowers that appear in May should be together as should purple flowers blooming in September.

So, if you want to go into your backyard and identify what is blooming there you will need a field guide, not this book.

Smallchief

Wild flowers of North Carolina
This is a good book to bring along on day hikes. Clear photos and identifying information. It is not about gardening wildflowers.

Wild Flowers of North Carolina
I have to agree with the review of Smallchief and I will elaborate. In general, an okay book, however, the organization follows that of the "Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas" by Radford, A.E., H.E. Aheles and C.R. Bell. 1968, 1138 pp (Manual). I do not own the Manual, therefore, I do not know the layout but I can say that if you are not a seasoned botanist neither of these books will be easy to use in the field or at home for that matter. Plain and simple, the "Wild Flowers of North Carolina" has no useful organization of the plants to assist amateur individuals looking to identify wild flowers in the field. You'll find yourself flipping back and forth in the book to find the flower you're standing in front of trying to identify. Typically only one picture per species and some are too far away not giving you much to help identify picture wise. The authors use a "Key Characters Summary Code" which I find difficult to use. You will not find the flowers organized by flower color or an alphabetical taxonomic listing and I do not know if the plants follow a phylogenetic arrangement either but I doubt it. Unless you own the Manual this book may not be the best choice but even if you own the Manual I can't see it making things much easier unless you like to constantly cross-reference. Why the authors chose to do this I do not know but it makes no sense other than to get individuals to buy both books because they have a common coauthor. Maybe it was just easier for the authors to compile the book this way. Ironically, in the Introduction the authors state "Our goal in this presentation of 500 native or naturalized plants in North Carolina is to open eyes, minds, and hearts to the story of the state's wild flowers, their beauty, there interesting attributes, their uses, and in many cases, their plight." Indeed this book contains much useful information, however, the book in no way makes it easy for individuals to reach the goals of the authors as stated above unless you're a sit at home, book studying, amateur wildflower enthusiast/botanist.

On some positive notes regarding this book, it has some useful Appendixes as follows: 1) Horticultural Chart for Native North Carolina Wild Flowers. 2) Endangered and Threatened North Carolina Wild Flowers. 3) Nomenclatural Changes for North Carolina Wild Flowers. Perhaps, if you have access to the Manual then this book would be a useful companion.