Customer Reviews

How To Identify Plants

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

 

 

From the copyright date, this book was written in the fifties. The quality of the black and white photos is consistent with this guess, as is the rather pedantic style. There are also chapters on the structure of the nomenclature system, which is probably already well-known by most of the likely readers, and on how to collect plants, which may not be a good idea these days, at least for the rarer species.

For $6 more, I'd go for the similar book by James/Melinda Harris. More focussed; better illustrations; less pedantic style.

I really liked this book and found it very reader-friendly and helpful. So it is not the newest book on the shelves, but that doesn't mean it is not a realiable and very useful resource. I had to buy this book for a class and never sold it back. Since that class I have used countless other guides on the same subject and when friends ask me what is a good starter guide book, with no hesitation I reply with How to Identify Plants by H.D. Harrington. Even today I still go back and reference it when using other field guides. This book sould be in every botanist's collection and makes a great starter for beginners.

Very helpful for reviewing terms that are used in taxonomic literature devoted to plant identification.

The guide is a bit old but goes over basic plant morphology with simple sketches. The book is very systematic and comprehensive. The book should still be of great value to beginning botanists.

This book has very detailed descriptions and definitions of the parts of plants used to make an identification, but does not provide an easy way to identify an unknown plant.