Flower for ID please

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by wildlifesnapper

They are arranged in families but there is a key in the front where you can compare flower shapes and number & colour of petals to whittle the species down.

Very true. My problem is that I'm such a novice that I don't often know which family it's in so don't know which key to use. There's nothing for it, I'll just have to learn more!

Dave P.

[Hobjob]

Originally Posted by pressld2

My trouble is that the book is arranged in order of flower families and I didn't have a clue where to start. This means looking at 5,000 paintings trying to match to a photo!

What I'd really like is a wildflower book organised in the sme way as the RHS Gardener's Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers. In that one, the plants are first divided into spring, summer, autumn and winter flowering and are then grouped by colour. With that system I could have gone straight to the pink spring flowers and would probably only have had a hundred or so to choose from. Does anyone know if such a book exists?
Dave P.

No I don't think such a book exists.

I think the best book for beginners is the collins guide
by Blamey, Fitter & Fitter
5Rev Ed edition (18 April 1996)
ISBN-13: 978-0002200622

It works by colour and number of petals - and you would have
rapidly found that the pink/white four petals and realized it was one
of the cabage family.

Don't by the book by Frances Rose - require much to much botonay!!

[Highland Damsel]

I spent years and years using the wild flower key by rose time after time going through every page to find what i was looking at, after a while you know where to look and when you find something new sometimes you have a good idea of what it is because you have seen it over and over whilst thumbing through the pages, not a bad way to learn, if a little time consuming and hard on the poor book, mine fell apart!

[Highland Damsel]

Don't by the book by Frances Rose - require much to much botonay!![/quote]

Francis Rose is fine for the pictures although i know what you mean about the descriptions they can be hard work, i never used the key, i hate keys!

[Dan Salter]

There is a book , though you will only find it secondhand.

Flowers by Colour...Marjory Blamey ( of fitter and blamey i presume)

I have seen one or two "wildlflowers by colour" type books come to think if it.

[Dan Salter]

Here you go Pressld. (where DID that user name come from????)

NHBS - Wild Flowers by Colour - Marjorie Blamey

Dan

[pressld2]

Thanks Dan, that looks interesting. And I do like the illustrations in the Wildflowers of Britain and Ireland so assuming it is the same Blamey they should be good in this book too.

Originally Posted by Dan Salter

(where DID that user name come from????)

It's very boring. It was an automatically allocated one on a work system - first six characters of surname (Pressland) + initial + number to ensure it's unique. I think pressld1 was me too but can't remember what happened to that. I've used it on quite a few systems now as it saves having too many to remember. I wish I'd chosen something more interesting when joining WAB but it's too late now!

Dave P.