Grasslands (Audubon Society Nature Guides) [Paperback]

Lauren Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 1985

A comprehensive field guide, fully illustrated with color photographs, to the trees, wildflowers, grasses, insects, birds, and other natural wonders of North America's prairies, fields, and meadows.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

A comprehensive field guide, fully illustrated with color photographs, to the trees, wildflowers, grasses, insects, birds, and other natural wonders of North America's prairies, fields, and meadows.

Product Details

• Paperback: 606 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st Ed. edition (May 12, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394731212
• ISBN-13: 978-0394731216
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,320,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Amber Waves of Grain..., May 30, 2008

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Grasslands (Audubon Society Nature Guides) (Paperback)

If you've ever driven across one of the great prairie states and seen nothing but sorghum or genetically-engineered corn on either side of the road, you may think the words of America the Beautiful are mere chauvinist hyperbole. Visit one of the 20 National Grasslands, however, and you'll share a thrill that the land-hungry pioneers of the 19th C took for granted. Grasslands in flower are as beautiful and as grand as the High Sierras or the red rock canyons of the Southwest. Sadly, they're a good deal more valuable also, once plowed and planted with grain. The result is that grasslands are as close to eradication as wetlands; only a tiny percentage of the grasslands of America are intact today, and the reckless cultivation of Frankenfood and Frankenfuel further endangers the survival of native grasses and of the birds, beasts, and butterflies that thrive on them.

Velvet grass, little bluestem, meadowfoam. Calico aster, larkspur, elegant camas, rain lily, buttercup. Ornate tiger, painted lady, swallowtail. Sage grouse, vesper sparrow, American goldfinch. Are the names poetry enough? Evocative of big skies and clover-scented zephyrs? Then you'd better grab this field guide, with its 618 full-color plates, and hasten to your nearest preserved grasslands before the needs of hungry humanity overwhelm them. This is as good a general field guide to the plants and animals of the grasslands as you'll ever find, though if you want to focus intimately on one ecological zone, you'll need a more specific source of info.

I've chosen to review this book today, May 30th 2008, after reading in my morning paper that the Mdewakanton tribe, owners of the most prospering casino in Minnesota, has invested a chunk of its new wealth in restoring hundreds of acres of cornfields to native grasslands, within an hour's drive of the Twin Cities. Go, tribe! Next time I visit my home state, I'll be walking in golden alexander and compass plant up to my knees, you betcha!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, August 5, 2001

By 

Jeffrey M. Reed (Hinsdale, New York United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grasslands (Audubon Society Nature Guides) (Paperback)

This is a very good introduction to American grasslands. If it has any flaws, it's that it tries to do too much with the result that it doesn't do enough. In other words, from a scientific point of view, there may be many similarities between the grasslands east and west of the continental divide. But from a visitors point of view, the short, mixed, and tall grass prairie east of the divide stands alone.

Therefore, this guide would have been more useful to me if it had concentrated on one side of the divide or the other, and devoted more text to the grasses on that side.

Still, as far as I know, there is no other guide of this kind, so I'm glad to have it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good for what it covers; unfortunately, doesn't cover much, May 29, 2006

By 

S. J. Snyder "De gustibus non disputandum" (Various, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grasslands (Audubon Society Nature Guides) (Paperback)

I considered a three-star rating, but just can't do it. A National Geographic or Peterson guide will do you better.

I mean, how can you omit the entire Heron genus from the book?

Plus, due to a printing problem which I didn't realize until a couple of days after I bought this book in a National Park, it was missing several pages of color plates.