Alpine Plants of the Northwest ─ Wyoming to Alaska

Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon have created a field guide to alpine plants from Wyoming to Alaska, designed for the serious amateur naturalist. While it includes information on historical uses of plants, it is not designed as a guide to edible or medicinal plants. It includes a short color-coded photo section for identifying common wildflowers, but is designed for users serious enough about plants to want to know the exact identification of any plant they see in the covered region. The book is organized into major sections in layperson's terms: trees; shrubs; wildflowers; graminoids (grasses); and ferns and allies. A botanical key to the group is provided at the beginning of each section, to orient readers to where to look for the plant they are seeking. Within the sections, the authors organize the plants by family (scientific and common names are given), and tend to keep species that might be easily confused near each other on the page to aid identification. Within each section, additional keys aid identification of individual plants in large families or genera. Readers may use this book to learn plant classification, since it can be successfully used without such knowledge but teaches it along the way. Each plant is illustrated with one or more small color photographs, and abundant small drawings clarify details or useful information such as the typical growth habit of a ground plant, or the typical shape of a species of tree. The photographs are clear but small, in the interest of providing a comprehensive guide to each plant, its parts, classification, where found, similar species, and many notes of interest in a format that will still fit in a backpack. Annotation c2014 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)