Customer Reviews

Guide to Flowering Plant Families

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Occasionally I have to (try) and key out plants at work. Not having a botany background makes this difficult and when I get stumped on a particular term or piece of plant anatomy I call up this book to walk me through the terminology. It is particularly useful if you can key the plant out to family level. It's picture (line art) illustrations are very clear and help tremendously when trying to understand what it is the key is referring to. Well worth the 35 dollars if you deal with the anatomy of plants at all or need to know family characteristics.

Many floras and the USDA Plant Database use Cronquist's classification system. Several families in that system are missing in Thorne's system as used in this book. I would suggest supplementing this book with James Payne Smith's "Vascular Plant Families."

*****This should be a five star rating but something happened when I wrote the review so I can't change the star rating. Suffice it to say that this is a very comprehensive book with wonderful black and white illustrations. A very useful guide for students of botanical art or for anyone interested in plants.

This book is awesome for finding taxonomic ranks, especially that above family status. I work with plant ID's and really use this book to help with finding the obscure ones.

I got this book because I needed to learn about plants and I needed a no nonsense, basic introduction to the plant families of the world--not just trees, not just herbs, and not just information from one part of the world. This book is all that and more. The descriptions of each family use botanical terminology, there are clear line drawings of the taxonomically informative characters, and economically important species are listed in each family. Because I am not an expert on plants, I can't comment on the accuracy of the information, but I can say that this book has been a great resource for me, as a novice botanist. My only complaint (and this is a minor one, because this is not supposed to be a field guide) is that I am unfamiliar with many of the families and color photos would really help me to learn to recognize the plants in nature. I highly recommend this book.

This is the last word in botanical family id.

But the vocabulary is very dense, which makes Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary an essential adjunct to it.

Once again Wendy Zomlefer has provided us with a beautiful, yet very functional, work of art. This book is an excelent reference for both the general public and the seasoned botanist.

The book is just fine ... that's why I ordered it ... it's a good book.

However, I thought I was buying the book USED at a less-than-new price. The price I actually paid was the new price. And I did receive a new book, thank you.

My question: Why didn't I pay for and receive the USED book that I wanted? I wonder if there is something in the ordering process that I missed. This is the first book order from amazon.