NOTE: These books are not for sale by the VNPS but should be available on the Internet or through your local bookseller. Out-of-print references may be available for borrowing through your local library.
Popular Guides
Elias, Thomas S. 1980. The Complete Trees of North America. Field guide and natural history. Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York. 948 p.Keys, descriptions, and, for most species, line drawings and distribution maps.
Fleming, Cristol, Marion Blois Lobstein, and Barbara Tufty. 1995. Finding
Wildflowers in the Washington-Baltimore Area. Johns Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore. 312 p.
A guide to interesting places to botanize, including some in northern
Virginia; decorated with a few black-and-white line drawings.
Mickel, John T. 1979. How to Know the Ferns and Fern Allies. Wm. C.
Brown Co., Dubuque, Iowa. 229 p. [Check for later edition.]
Keys, brief descriptions, and line drawings of species.
Newcomb, Lawrence. 1977. Newcomb's Wildflower Guide. An ingenious new
key system for quick, positive field identification of the wildflowers,
flowering shrubs and vines of northeastern and north-central North America.
Illustrated by Gordon Morrison. Little, Brown and Company, Boston. 490 p.
[The more recent printing is still the original edition.]
Arranged according to simplified key with related species together;
descriptions, line drawings of most species and color paintings of a few.
Niering, William A. and Nancy C. Olmstead. 1979. The Audubon Society Field
Guide to North American Wildflowers. Eastern Region. Alfred A. Knopf, New
York. 863 p. [Check for more recent edition.]
Arranged by color, with descriptions, a pictorial key, and color
photographs of 658 species.
Peterson, Roger Tory and Margaret McKenny. 1968. A Field Guide to
Wildflowers of Northeastern and North-Central North America. Houghton
Mifflin Co., Boston. 420 p. [The Ferns guide and the Trees and
Shrubs guide in the Peterson Field Guide Series are also good popular
books.]
Arranged by color, with descriptions and line drawings of most species and
color paintings of a few.
Rickett, Harold William. 1966. Wild Flowers of the United States:
Volume 1: The Northeastern States. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New
York. 2 vols. [Regarding availability, check with The New York
Botanical Garden, Southern Blvd. at 200th St., Bronx, NY 10458.]
Large, coffee-table format arranged by plant family, with descriptions, some
line drawings, and color photographs of most species.
Technical Manuals and Checklists
Brown, Russell G., and Melvin L. Brown. 1972. Woody Plants of Maryland. The Student Supply Store, University of Maryland, College Park. 347 p.Keys for summer and winter conditions, descriptions, line drawings of all species.
Brown, Melvin L., and Russell G. Brown. 1984. Herbaceous Plants of
Maryland. The Book Center, University of Maryland, College Park.
1127 p.
Keys, descriptions, line drawings of all species.
Fernald, Merritt Lyndon. 1950. Gray's Manual of Botany, Ed. 8. A
handbook of the flowering plants and ferns of the central and northeastern
United States and adjacent Canada. Dioscorides Press, Portland, OR. (1987
reprint with corrections by R. C. Rollins)
Very technical manual with keys, descriptions, and limited number of
small line drawings.
Flora of North America Editorial Committee. 1993- . Flora of North America North of Mexico. Vol. 1 (1993). Introduction. Vol. 2 (1993). Pteridophytes and Gymnosperms. Vol. 3 (1997). Magnoliophyta: Magnoliidae and Hamamelidae. Vol. 22 (2000). Magnoliophyta: Alismatidae, Arecidae, Commelinidae (in part), and Zingiberidae. Oxford University Press, New York (NY) and Oxford.
A large-format, multi-volumed, definitive treatise in process, the volumes not necessarily appearing in sequence. Keys, descriptions, and distribution maps of all species; line drawings of representative species. The work of many specialists.
Gleason, Henry A. and Arthur Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular
Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Ed. 2.
New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY. 910 p. [Regarding availability,
check with The New York Botanical Garden, Southern Blvd. at 200th St.,
Bronx, NY 10458.]
Comprehensive technical manual with identification keys and plant
descriptions. Not illustrated, but see Holmgren below.
Harvill, A.M., Jr., Ted R. Bradley, Charles E. Stevens, Thomas F. Wieboldt,
Donna M. E. Ware, Douglas W. Ogle, Gwynn W. Ramsey, and Gary P. Fleming.
1992. Atlas of the Virginia Flora. III. Virginia Botanical Associates,
Burkeville, VA. 144 p. [Available from A.M. Harvill, Route 1, Box 63,
Burkeville, VA 23922]
Distribution maps by county for every native and naturalized species of
vascular plant in Virginia. Not illustrated.
Holmgren, Noel H. 1998. Illustrated Companion to Gleason and Cronquist's Manual. Illustrations of the Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY. 937 p.
Line drawings of the species in the Gleason and Cronquist Manual (see above).
Lellinger, David B. 1985. A Field Manual of the Ferns & Fern Allies of
the United States & Canada. Color photographs by A. Murray Evans.
Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC. 389 p.
Keys, descriptions, and center section of photographs.
Radford, Albert E., Harry E. Ahles, and C. Ritchie Bell. 1964.
Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. University of
North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. 1183 p.
Keys, descriptions, line drawings of many species, and distribution
maps of all species.
Shetler, Stanwyn G., and Sylvia Stone Orli. 2000. Annotated Checklist of the Vascular Plants of the Washington - Baltimore Area. Part I. Ferns, Fern Allies, Gymnosperms, and Dicotyledons. Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. 186 p. [Photo-reproduced. Available from Stanwyn. G. Shetler, Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560-0166; shetlers@si.edu]
Catalog of species found within about a 50-mile radius of Washington, DC. Arranged by scientific name, but includes common names and detailed index to species by common name.
Strausbaugh, P.D., and Earl L. Core. [1978.] Flora of West Virginia. Ed.
2. Seneca Books, Grantsville, WV. 1079 p.
Keys, descriptions, and line drawings of all species.
Additional resources can be found at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's Native Plant Bibliography. This bibliography contains over 950 books about all aspects of North American native plants and can be searched by region, author name, keyword or subject. See http://www.wildflower2.org/NPIN/Bibliography/Bibliography.html.
Compiled by Stanwyn G. Shetler, and last revised 13 July 2000. Updates or suggested additions may be sent to him by mail at:
Department of Botany
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560-0166
by FAX at (202) 786-2563
or by e-mail at: shetlers@si.edu. Be sure to include all pertinent details.