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The Jepson Manual: Vascular Plants of California
The second edition of The Jepson Manual thoroughly updates this acclaimed work, the single most comprehensive resource on California's amazingly diverse flora. The Jepson Manual, second edition, integrates the latest science with the results of intensive fieldwork, institutional collaboration, and efforts of hundreds of contributing authors into an essential reference on California's native and naturalized vascular plants.
The second edition includes treatments of many newly described or discovered taxa and recently introduced plants, and reflects major improvements to plant taxonomy from phylogenetic studies. Nearly two-thirds of the 7,600 species, subspecies, and varieties the volume describes are now illustrated with diagnostic drawings. Geographic distributions, elevation ranges, flowering times, nomenclature, and the status of non-natives and native taxa of special concern have all been updated throughout. This edition also allows for identification of 240 alien taxa that are not fully naturalized but sometimes encountered. A new chapter on geologic, climatic, and vegetation history of California is also featured.
The second edition includes treatments of many newly described or discovered taxa and recently introduced plants, and reflects major improvements to plant taxonomy from phylogenetic studies. Nearly two-thirds of the 7,600 species, subspecies, and varieties the volume describes are now illustrated with diagnostic drawings. Geographic distributions, elevation ranges, flowering times, nomenclature, and the status of non-natives and native taxa of special concern have all been updated throughout. This edition also allows for identification of 240 alien taxa that are not fully naturalized but sometimes encountered. A new chapter on geologic, climatic, and vegetation history of California is also featured.
- GenresReferenceNonfiction
1600 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 24, 2018
This is THE essential reference for California botanists. I only know of one who doesn't sleep with this under his pillow (metaphorically; the thing's a brick), and he's locally specialized and has a manual specific to the Santa Cruz mountains. The good news is that you don't need to shell out money for it: the Jepson Manual is fully online, and helpfully linked to that other behemoth botanical reference, CalFlora. The other good news is that, short of well-behaved garden ornamentals, bleeding-edge-invasives and renamed/reclassified species wrought by molecular-based taxonomy approaches, just about every vascular plant you'll encounter in California is in here. And oh boy, the California Floristic Province is one hot mess of plant diversity.
The bad news is that this manual is entirely unsuited to beginners or any but the most determined hobbyists. There are no photos (line drawings only). Plants are not sorted by colors or appearance or how happy they make you feel when you see them. The terminology is intense, and at places, damn near unintelligible. There is a glossary and a map of the abbreviations for different regions of California. I recommend bookmarking them if you insist on using the paper Jepson; the online one has hover-over-definitions for terms and includes the maps (thank you, whoever made that call).
Plants are grouped taxonomically: there are sections for ferns, gymnosperms, basal dicots, eudicots, and monocots, and big overview type dichotomous keys to help you sort things out if you don't already know which family a plant belongs (although...if this is the case, good luck). Each family and genus then has its own keys, written by an expert in that plant family. My plant tax professor wrote the section on Polemoniaceae (the phlox family) and was one of the editors for the manual. Go Bob!
With sufficient use, you'll find that many of the keys are fine, but some, well, suck. A lot. The multi-page Eriogonum (buckwheat) key (e.g.: "Stem tomentose, if glabrous then involucres peduncled at lower nodes") almost drove me to despair on one memorable, time-crunched exam. The Brassicaceae (mustard family) key starts with an all important distinction of whether the fine, minute, nearly invisible hairs on the stem are branched or single. And there's nothing quite like getting to the end of a key only to realize that you only have flowers, not fruit, and the size of the seed (1-1.5mm vs 1.5-2.5mm) is what primarily determines which species it is. Curse you, Solanum key!
If you despair at using the Jepson (or have switched over entirely to the faster, friendlier digital hybrid of CalFlora + online Jepson), this large, unwieldy volume doubles as an excellent plant press (collected under permit from abundant populations, of course). Not too many plants, and nothing too big or succulent, or else you might end up with mold, which is not part of the plant kingdom at all.
The bad news is that this manual is entirely unsuited to beginners or any but the most determined hobbyists. There are no photos (line drawings only). Plants are not sorted by colors or appearance or how happy they make you feel when you see them. The terminology is intense, and at places, damn near unintelligible. There is a glossary and a map of the abbreviations for different regions of California. I recommend bookmarking them if you insist on using the paper Jepson; the online one has hover-over-definitions for terms and includes the maps (thank you, whoever made that call).
Plants are grouped taxonomically: there are sections for ferns, gymnosperms, basal dicots, eudicots, and monocots, and big overview type dichotomous keys to help you sort things out if you don't already know which family a plant belongs (although...if this is the case, good luck). Each family and genus then has its own keys, written by an expert in that plant family. My plant tax professor wrote the section on Polemoniaceae (the phlox family) and was one of the editors for the manual. Go Bob!
With sufficient use, you'll find that many of the keys are fine, but some, well, suck. A lot. The multi-page Eriogonum (buckwheat) key (e.g.: "Stem tomentose, if glabrous then involucres peduncled at lower nodes") almost drove me to despair on one memorable, time-crunched exam. The Brassicaceae (mustard family) key starts with an all important distinction of whether the fine, minute, nearly invisible hairs on the stem are branched or single. And there's nothing quite like getting to the end of a key only to realize that you only have flowers, not fruit, and the size of the seed (1-1.5mm vs 1.5-2.5mm) is what primarily determines which species it is. Curse you, Solanum key!
If you despair at using the Jepson (or have switched over entirely to the faster, friendlier digital hybrid of CalFlora + online Jepson), this large, unwieldy volume doubles as an excellent plant press (collected under permit from abundant populations, of course). Not too many plants, and nothing too big or succulent, or else you might end up with mold, which is not part of the plant kingdom at all.
August 17, 2021
Landscape bible
May 16, 2022
Magnificent.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews