A Field Guide to the Flowers of the Alps (Pelagic Identification Guides)

Bought after I had come back from walking in Austria and the Dolomites in July 2013. Replaced a basic flower guide , which did not have sufficient information to satisfy the glorious variety of wild flowers on display. The book size is perfect for putting in your pocket whilst walking, clear illustrations and explanations. Can't wait to go again.

A pocket guide that really does fit in your pocket. Excellent colour photographs and keys combine with short texts help you to identify mountain flowers in Europe. Previous guides in English relied on paintings but for me the photographs in this guide were more helpful and this book is much lighter to carry on a mountain walk.

The book was recommended to me by a fellow walker on a recent walking holiday in Switzerland. It certainly helps with identifying alpine flowers and due to its compact size, it is easy to take along.

I nearly didn't buy this book due to the critical reviews, but finding few alternatives, decided to take a chance. I can now put names to most of the unfamiliar species that I saw in the Alps last week, so clearly the book did work. Is it perfect? Depends; if you're planning to do a full ecological survey, then clearly you will need much more than this. But if you just want to identify some species while out hiking, and can accept that not everything you see will be in there, it's fine.About the photos - yes, they are on the small side, but in most cases they're still enough to at least get you to the right family. I ended up googling some species to get better photos to confirm, but the book was useful in pointing me in the right direction. Basically, it's a field guide for casual use. A book that provided a full key to alpine species and a comprehensive description of each would be better for some purposes, but I'm sure that I wouldn't want a tome that size in my rucksack!

First class, especially because it is written in English! This was a present for my son and daughter-in-law who have a flat in Switzerland but every similar guide obtainable there in written in German.

It is clear and concise, photos are excellent. Good intro but not too much bla bla so as to keep it small and light for a pocket or a rucksack. very happy with this product

This really is the best book for identifying alpines for the interested non-specialist. It is easy to carry and a comprehensive work rather than the "selected highlights" of other guides.

An ideal pocket book for identifying flowers in the mountains. The larger scale one I have weighs 5kgs!, which makes it hard to carry about.

Several guides had this book when I visited Switzerland, but I couldn't find it in any of the places I visited. So it is an excellent resource to buy before traveling to the Alps. Flowers are organized by color. I was happy to find that the text is all in English, despite the description saying that this is the English and German edition. I believe that the book was originally written in German and later translated into English. It does use the metric system rather than the Imperial/English system (inches, feet, etc.). The only negative to me is that the type is quite small, so I need my reading glasses to see it.

I took it on a trip to Switzerland and it was very helpful I like the layout of the book. The pictures are very well done. The book is printed on good quality magazine type glossy paper. This does make it a bit heavy if weight is a consideration in a backpack.

Excellent color photos. Book is a convenient small size for carrying in knapsack when walking in the Alps. Look forward to using it next month.

Although relatively brief, there is a lot of high quality information and well-photographed plant images in this book. I would prefer a little larger format, but this book is the best I've found so far on the subject and definitely worth the very reasonable price.

Very comprehensive. Easy to use. Photos are clear.