Customer Reviews

A Pocket Guide to Hawai'i's Trees and Shrubs

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

 

 

A truly superb guidebook; it is the one you should have to make sense of the profusion of exotic flora on the Islands. Other books show small selections of the trees and shrubs, with the result that the particular one in front of you is often omitted. Pratt has solved the problem for us; his book is comprehensive, beautiful, and easy to use. If you are planning a trip to the Islands, I recommend getting this book ahead of time. There is so much worth appreciating, it is time well spent getting oriented ahead of time. This guide is sure to become a classic.

This is just what the title promises: a pocket guide. As such it is high class, printed on glossy paper and profusely illustrated with high quality color pictures taken in the field. It takes the reader through the several vegetation zones of Hawai'i and presents the noteworthy plants, category by category. I can well imagine that this booklet will give visitors to Hawai'i much pleasure.

I am not so sure about this "reading beforehand" the other reviewer mentions: this will be a pretty brief read. Also too concise to serve as a field guide, with pictures that are awfully small. It really is a pocket guide only, but as such it is a gem.

We picked up this book full price at one of the National Parks on Maui. It really helped us look up several plants we encountered on Hawaii, Maui and Kauai. The pictures are rather small, and further research is needed to determine edibility of these plants, but this book provides a good starting point and Latin names. It is arranged by environmental areas, a good system on an island that goes from coastal to tropical forest to alpine areas on a mountainside with altitude.

Recommended. Small size makes it easy to carry.