Wildflowers of the Florida Keys: A Field Guide to the Wildflowers, Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of the Region (Wildflower Series)

EVALUATION> FKW would only be a few pages long if it did not included plants already covered in Hammers  Everglades Wildflowers: A Field Guide To Wildflowers Of The Historic Everglades, Including Big Cypress, Corkscrew, And Fakahatchee Swamps (Wildflowers in the National Parks Series) , or flowering trees and scrubs. Unfortunately, most of the flowering trees and scrubs have inconspicuous flowers which are often visible for only a few days per year, or even only once every several years. Trees and scrubs are better identified by other characteristics. So, FKW adds little to "Everglades Wildflowers" and a good "tree book", such as  Trees of North America . You can get ToNA for 1 cent on Amazon. In ToNA, some of the names of genuses have changed, but the illustrations are great, and the coverage is thorough.> I found FKW worthwile for the herbaceous flowering plants which are not covered in "Everglades Wildflowers", but many purchasers may not.PROS> Great rugged binding---can survive field use.> Great sharp clear photos, beautifully reproduced.> Arranged by flower color, which makes narrowing down possibilities quick, especially for individuals with little botanical knowledge or experienceCONS> The arrangement by flower color separates related species, and makes narrowing down possibilities difficult for those with botanical knowledge and experience. Moreover, flower colors of some species is variable.> The "one photo per species" policy does not illustrate color or other variations.> Many photos of the flowers only, and do not include leaves or stems which are often important to identification. The book is useless for identifying most of the plants when they are not flowering.> The "Comments" (usually nearly half of the text) are about the Latin meaning of the genus and/or species names, which is interesting, but not usually useful in identifying plants.> The "Comments" rarely mention closely related species which also occur in South Florida, and rarely contain information on how to differentiate the species from similar species.> Click on “Stoney” just below the product title to see my other reviews, or leave a comment to ask questions.

Great book with great pictures. Love how it is divided by color, making it easy to find what your looking for when you are on a field trip.

A much have for S Florida

Like his book on the flowers of the Everglades, Roger Hammer has again produced a clear concise text on flowers, but this time from the Florida Keys. This is a wonderful reference for anybody that is interested in ecotouring the American tropics. The photographs are great, and the color printing is top notch. The layout, which is organized according the flower's color, rather than botanical family, makes it easy to use in the field.

I am a naturalist in South Florida and I love to identify different plants. Roger makes the plants accessible to the beginner naturalist and entertaining with historical facts about the different plants he has included.