New Member Seeks Book Advice Please

[muddyrutter]

Hi All,

I have just joined up and wanted to know if any of you have recommendations for an initial field reference book for British Wildflowers.

At the moment I have my little Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guide and have looked at some books in shops but there seem to be so many that rely on photographs as opposed to quality drawings.

I recently bought the Collins Butterflies Field Guide which seems ideal to me. Is there something similar in the world of wildflowers please?

All suggestions would be gratefully received.

Many thanks

Nick

[PeterJL]

Originally Posted by muddyrutter

Hi All,

All suggestions would be gratefully received.

Nick

I'll leave others to suggest Rose/Blamey etc for the pocket field guide but the book with the best and most accurate drawings by far is The Wild Flowers of the British Isles by Ian Garrard and David Streeter (in my opinion). It's a big book not much use in the field.

For reference the book which has the name of almost all flowers, native and introduced, is New Flora of the British Isles Vol 2 by Clive Stace but this book has no pictures. However he also produces a DVD of his book with scanned photos (mostly poor quality) of all the plants in his book.

But there isn't one book which will do for everything and I have 91 books about plants/trees/flowers/sedges etc. etc. on my bookshelf (I thought I had about 30 or 40 but I've just counted them).

[Hobjob]

Wild Flower Books
=============
A Frequently asked question, hence a potted and previoiusly
posted answer:

Very popular is:

"Rose"
The Wild Flower Key: A Guide to Plant Identification in the Field,
with and Without Flowers by Francis Rose
ISBN-13: 978-0723224198
Rose needs a moderate understanding of botany to cope with the keys.
I'm also not impressed with the colours.
Keys often need fruit and/or roots for identification, which are
not always around!

***I think it is awful for beginners.***

Blamey, Fitter & Fitter have two books, broadly similar,
one by domino guides (?now tandem?) and other by collins.
(Pictures are very similar as Blamey is the artist for both
and IMO better pictures than Rose)

The domino guide has great little distribution maps which
can be VERY helptful, but has no keys (apart from within
families) and is only Britain.
There is a drift of wild flowers from the South, some feel that
just having GP is limiting.
This has grasses and sedge and the text is clearer than the collins.
ISBN 0 7136 5944 0

The collins guide is smaller, so more rucksack friendly,
and has a good simple guide to getting the right pages
by using flower shape, petal number, inflorescence shape
and colour.
So excellent in early stage os learning.
It is also remarkably rain tolerant !!
It covers UK and West Europe.
Some commonish species are not immediately clear as
found in the text of other species.
Someone told me (? on WAB) that the drawings in this
book are better than the domino guide as Blamey was getting old
when she had to-draw the domino guide.
Both seem fine to me.
5Rev Ed edition (18 April 1996)
ISBN-13: 978-0002200622

I have also just bought
"A new key to wild flowers"
by Hayward and Hickey, from the Field Studies Council.
ISBN 1 85153 285 4
buy direct from the FSC (google)
(about 16 smackers)

Initial impression is great, because the key has simple line
drawings and seems easy to follow for non specialist
(it grew out of teaching amateurs).
It is NOT a picture matching book with text though.
In fact is is B&W only, but a great addition.

Really a photographic record of FANTASTIC
quality there is Roger Phillips'
"Wild Flowers of Britain"
ISBN 0 330 25183 x
Sometimes photos seem so much better than drawings
and sometimes vice versa.
it is diffilcult to show all identifying features with one or two
photos. Often basal leaves, fruit, bracts, sepals, hairs etc.
all need to be seen.


The illustrated Flora of Brit and N Europe
Blamey and Grey-Wilson, has been out of print for some
time I think. Another Domino Book
ISBN0 340 40170 2

My copy came from the States via Abebooks after 12 months
of having a request in, and cost MORE than the original, even
without postage ;-(
Persaonlly I don't think it adds a lot to the Domino guide
mentioned before.


Complete British Wild Flowers (Collins Complete Photo Guides) by Paul Sterry
was publsihed last year.
I have not looked at it so can not comment.
ISBN-13: 978-0007204694


Richard Mabey'a "Flora Britannica" is neither a flora or a
guide book - though it is an excellent read.
ISBN-13: 978-1856193771


New Flora of the British Isles
by Stace and Thomson is the "Bible", but it is
words and not pictures and to avoided unless a botanist ;-)
ISBN-13: 978-0521589352


Excursion Flora of the British Isles
Clapham Tutin and warburg is also words and no use
to a starter
ISBN-13: 978-0521232906

[ChrisJB]

Hello,

The two I use most are:

1. Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland, by Blamey, Fitter and Fitter (very comprehensive)

2. Wild Flowres of Britain, By Roger Phillips (lots of omissions, but a great format and lovely photos)

Regards, Chris

[Hornbeam]

Best book to take with you is Fitter, Fitter & Blamey. Its comprehensive and contains plants that Rose excludes because its coverage include plants of Britain and northern Europe. And we do find more and more European plants now. Rose is good for verifying but unless you are a trained botanist (I'm not) the use of keys is unhelpful and mystifying. Best bet is to go into a good bookshop and look at as may books as you can. Then you can decide which are best for you. Good luck!

[muddyrutter]

Thank you all for taking the trouble to reply and for offering some very useful suggestions.

I have been busy looking around in shops and on the Net and will make some decisions soon.

I appreciate that this question must be asked so often on this site but as a newcomer I am grateful for your help.

Best wishes,

Nick