Customer Reviews

An Illustrated Flora of Yosemite National Park

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

 

 

this long awaited nature book, although expensive, is worth every single penny. AS a long time lover of yosemite I thought I had fairly well explored its flora wonders---wrong. For the last two months I have consulted its index, made lists and notations, and dreamed about next spring.

If you're the kind of person who has ever picked this book up, you covet it. You know you do.

I've had this book for a year or two and can still wile away hours just flipping through. The illustrations are beautiful and if you don't find it here (and you're in Yosemite), you've probably misidentified it. Includes most invasive species even.

That said, if you're not an amateur botanist, you'll be sorely challenged to find much of anything in here. It is arranged taxonomically, so you can't look up flowers by things like color. If you can't use the dichotomous key, you'll end up doing a LOT of searching and often not a lot of finding. Often, if you can't get beyond whether or not the plant has superior or inferior ovaries, you literally hardly narrow the choices down at all.

Oh by the way, this book is probably at least 5 pounds and won't even fit in the average day pack. This is by no means a field guide!

We purchased this book in Yosemite and talked with Stephen Botti at length. He is a conscientious student, and now master, of Yosemite plants. Before our hike, we studied his book and were rewarded on the trail with plants he described. The book is full of color pictures; a nice reminder of what we saw in Yosemite this summer on those cold days back home in winter.

I think the other reviewers have covered most of the advantages and limitations of this book. I would just like to add a few observations that may be useful to the more technical user. First, while the fantastic illustrations help inspire greater confidence in a positive identification than cryptic descriptions and occasional line drawings in the Jepson Manual, the result is a book that is roughly the same size as the library printing of the Jepson Manual, while only covering a fraction of the geographic scope. Second, the majority of copies I have seen that have been subjected to regular use (i.e., by professional botanists working in Yosemite) are in a condition that would suggest that the binding of this book is not as durable as most similar references. Take home message: this is a great book, but not one that should ever be taken into the field. Keep it at home or in the office and be gentle with it.