Customer Reviews

Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest (Timber Press Field Guides)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Since I moved to Portland, I've accumulated several wildflower guides trying to find a good one: The Audubon book has great photos but tries to cover the entire western half of the continent and so leaves a LOT unmentioned or at least unpictured. The Peterson "Pacific States" guide doesn't have ANY photographs (only drawings) and is similarly incomplete. "Wildflowers of the Columbia River Gorge" is very complete for its area, but is (obviously) geographically limited and also suffers from a terrible organizational scheme and a lack of text.

So, I've been looking forward for the publication of "Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest" since I first heard it was in the works. My first impression is that it lives up to its billing: over 1200 species, organized by color, then flower shape, then plant family. For every species, you get a description of its typical habitat and abundance; a 6cm x 4cm photo; a detailed paragraph about identifying features (and notes about similar species or subspecies, if applicable); and a map showing counties where it can be found in OR, WA, CA, and BC.

To make room for more species, they've omitted some less-showy varieties, but that's fine with me. The one quibble I have is with the index: the common (non-Latin) name given is not always the one you might be familiar with, and they alphabetize the flowers according to the beginning of their name, not the "important" part of the name. For example, you have to look up subalpine mariposa lily under "subalpine," not "mariposa lily" or "lily," and if you know it as "cat's ear lily," you won't find it at all.

But overall, I'd heartily recommend this book to anyone in Oregon, Washington, southern B.C., or far northern California. It costs a little more than the other field guides but is well worth it.

Other than Pojar and MacKinnon's book and Cooke's wetland guide, this is the only general purpose, non-technical botanical books I'd recommend for the Pacific Northwest for wildflowers. Over 1200 species are covered, including many of those in oft-ignored areas covered by other guides such as southern Oregon and the Wallowa/Blue Mountains. Not every species is covered, of course, but chances are that if you see a plant growing somewhere in Washington or Oregon, this book would likely have it. Plant descriptions are solid, photographs are crisp and professional, and the county maps showing distribution are a tremendous addition (I cannot emphasize this enough). Anyone in the Pacific Northwest who is even a fleeting interest in wildflowers has to pick this up.

A great book for anyone wanting to identify all those wildflower pictures you took, but never have. Very user friendly, I was able to ID a bunch of pictures I took in a relatively short time. Beautiful color photos. It didn't receive the 5th star because of the index. For example, I knew I had a mariposa lily, but didn't know what species. The index didn't help because you won't find "mariposa"; you need to know the exact species name. Also, not all common names are listed (compared to the National Plants Database). Besides that, I am very satisfied with the book and highly recommend it.

Mark Turner's books has become my bible for wildflower hunting in the Pacific Northwest. Not only is it jam-packed with most species, his photos are great and he offers great details for each plant. I have just about every wildflower book published for flowers throughout this region and Turner's is by far the best and first one I grab when heading out the door in search of flowers.

This book got an award from the American Horticultural Society, and at first read, it deserves it. While a little heavy for a backpacking trip, it would easily fit into a day-pack for a trip to a high mountain meadow or other heavily flowered location. It is well organized, and the flower photos are detailed enough to be useful. Of the various flower guides I have, it comes the closest to covering mountain flowers in Washington -- while omitting most of the flowers that would never appear in this environment. It seems as though that should be an easy and obvious thing to do ... but I have at least 3 other flower guides that don't quite pull it off.

Most horticultural books on anything "Pacific Northwest" tend to overlook the arrid eastern half of Washington state, which is a vastly different climate than the wet western side of the state. This book doesn't. As a previous reviewer noted, the maps are a GREAT and help tremendously in narrowing down the possible options when trying to ID a 5 petal yellow flower with heart-shaped leaves. That said, I did sometimes have problems with the pictures. Most are so closeup that there is no mistaking the correct identification; others aren't, making comparisons difficult. Oh, and the common name index--a huge omission. But for the most part, this is an excellent resource.

I am very pleased with how thorough and complete this book is. It is very comprehensive and user-friendly. You do not have to be fluent in botanical terms to identify an unknown flower.
I also agree with the other reviewers that there should also be an index (or at least a cross-reference) of common names. Having to deal with only latin names does create an obstacle.
That being said, this is THE best field guide I've experienced with Pacific NW Wildflowers.

The book "Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest" by Mark Turner and Phyllis Gustafson is both beautiful and informative, and succeeds in simplifying wildflower identification with its clever organization.
After a description of the growing conditions in the Pacific Northwest, the book organizes the wildflowers by color. Each color category is further divided into petal formation (number of petals, irregular, symmetrical, etc.).
There is a stunning photo of each wildflower, its formal and common name, a brief description of where and when to find the wildflower, followed by more detailed information.

Our kindergarten student is interested in wildflowers. We live in the Northeast part of the State of Washington. While most wildflower books pretty much ignore us this author has taken great pains to include our area.

This book is so good that our child's older brother, who is in the third grade, carries the book with him on the family's weekly hike where the entire family, including the kindergarten student, identifies flowers.

The author has a website http://www.pnwflowers.com/ that has pictures (of fine quality) of all the flowers in the book. We plan to let the kindergarten student download the pictures of the flowers he has found locally, make comments about the flower and where he found it, and make his own little wildflower book of Northeast Washington. (I expect the older brother and parent may help some.) He may even start his own little wildflower garden next year.

We found one flower that is supposed to only be on the west side of the state but because we have such sandy soil it is doing just fine.

It is especially important, and useful, that the author is willing to answer questions submitted by email and is even available to return your phone call. The author does not have much extra time so the conversation is kept right on target but he fully answered all the questions I had.

This spring we started photographing and trying to identify the wildflowers in our area, southern Oregon. Turner's has been the most helpful book for us. Excellent photos, thorough knowledgeable descriptions, maps. I think you are very likely to quickly find prominent wildflowers in this book. An earlier review criticized the lack of foliage in some photos; this is a hard need to address in a single photo. Often Turner's descriptions enable us to differentiate between species with similar flowers and different leaves.

Remember, all field guides are a compromise between portability (size), inclusiveness, and degree of expertise required of the user. This one requires little expertise, because the photos are organized by color.

For more extensive coverage, try A Field Guide to Pacific States Wildflowers: Washington, Oregon, California and adjacent areas (Peterson Field Guide) by Theodore Niehaus, which depicts most species with line drawings sorted by color and flower type, and color drawings of a few species. It saves space for illustrating more species, by giving shorter descriptions and no distribution maps. It also includes flowers from a wider area (adding in California). Drawings can depict foliage side by side with flowers, and arrows indicate points of distinction. But color photos, with Turner's being of the highest quality I have seen, have a unique value. Also just enjoyable to browse through!

Turner, the author is working on an iPhone/iPad app of this book, which will be definitely something to look for too.