The Ultimate Guide to Wild Flowers of North America

by Joan Barker

This is a guide to North American wild flowers. It identifies more than 180 popular wild flowers from throughout North America. It includes pictures, text and maps and is organized by the flower's color.

Genres: Nature, Reference, Gardening

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Chris Meads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains any of the popular flowers across the US. The pictures are stunning and there is a lot of information about each flower, where it is located, and many have what the Indialns used the plant for.

[Adelaide · Rating 4 out of 5]

First and foremost: This book is, as you would expect it to be, a really great resource. I live in the suburbs and not a lot of wild flowers grow around here, but if I ever had a chance to go hiking or camping out in the wilderness, I would absolutely bring this book along. I actually learned a lot from it! I’m the kind of person who loves looking at plants but isn’t always the best at telling the differences between them, so this was very easy for a beginner or hobbyist like myself to understand. For instance, do you know those little plants with roundish leaves with red-purple and purple tube-like flowers that look a bit like silly aliens? They’re considered to be a weed around here. I honestly had no semblance of an idea on what they would be called, but lo and behold, they’re called the Henbit or the Common Dead Nettle! I had no idea. I learned the names of a few plants that I see around here in people’s yards or along the side of the road, which makes me pretty happy. I like knowing the names of things. Also, the photography is lovely. I, myself, take pictures of pretty much all the cute plants I can find, so I loved seeing all of the nice pictures that accompanied the information on each flower.

Now, there are a few imperfections in this book, but my biggest concern is something that I’m not even sure anyone else will ever deal with: The binding of the book. My copy seems to be a strange mix of both paperback and… flimsy cardboard? The spine will not crease, which sounds great, but really can be more of a pain in the butt than I had ever thought. Because it won’t crease along with the pages as you open the book, the glue has separated and the pages don’t stay attached to the inside of the spine like they should. It’s a bit of a mess and I recommend being very, very careful if you happen to get a copy like the one I have.

Overall, I’m glad I purchased this book. It was quick and easy to read, if you’re into reading books like this cover-to-cover for fun, despite my issues with the pages separating from the inner spine, I can say the cover itself is very sturdy and the pages feel heavy for their size, the photography and colors are all lovely, and the information on each flower is both informative and light enough for the casual observer. I’d be happy to recommend this to anyone else who is into flowers but not too into them. This is definitely a hobby book if anything, which is exactly what I wanted when I went looking for flower books!

[Chance · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a very wonderful and informative book! I accidentally broke the spine on my copy because while reading it, I also took it on walks with me and used it to help me identify the wildflowers that grow around me. Out of all the wildflower books I've read, this one is so far the best I've read to date.