California Plant Families: West of the Sierran Crest and Deserts

Don't get me wrong, I really want to like this book. The idea of organizing based on generalized characteristics of plant families is nice in concept, but I'm afraid the execution is a bit too minimalist to be useful to all but the most committed students of botany and taxonomy. See a plant in your backyard or along the hiking trail? This book will provide almost no help in identifying it unless you already have a pretty good idea what it is. Unfortunately, the authors appear to have chosen scope and their central organizational conceit at the expense of utility...this book is a mile wide and an inch deep.Almost every section of the book, one section per family, consists of 1-2 pages of very general text matched to one page of sparse, black and white line drawings. Occasionally, a large or diverse family will be lavished with a bonus page or two, but this is the exception and not the rule. Sketches are typically selected to show mainly specific details which are botanically unique to the family in question. However, for anyone who has worked through an identification key, definitive identifying features are often buried down in the details of flower, stamen, or ovary, and are frequently far from the first, second, or even tenth characteristic you are likely to notice when you spot an interesting plant. This focus on minutiae and fine structure frequently leaves me thinking, "That's nice, but what do these plants actually look like?" Unfortunately, this book will not provide the answer, and while it names many different genera and species within each family, each receives 1-2 lines of text and only the most "representative" (presumably) merit sketches. With very few exceptions, plant habit and form are simply not illustrated...nor are often wide variations within a given family. The result is a book that effectively misses the forest for the trees, so to speak.So...if this book sounds appealing to you, just recognize what it is and what it is not. If you like to learn about botany mainly by reading text descriptions, and if your interest tends more to the taxonomic than practical, then there is some interesting information here, and its presentation and organization may serve you well. Visual learners will likely be disappointed. Perhaps in a future edition, the authors could include a page of color photos illustrating the more prominent or significant members of each family, keyed to the lists of genera and species...that would make this a truly indispensable volume.The other reviewer commented on throwing this book in his backpack for hiking trips... As a purely practical matter, I wouldn't recommend the book for this purpose...it's a bit big and really is not suitable as a field guide.

The layout of this book is very text heavy with no headers or bolded text, a bit of formatting would have helped this book tremendously. The illustrations are beautiful but get lost in all that text. It would be more pleasant to use if a graphic designer could reformat it and perhaps add some color illustrations.As the another reviewer mentioned, it won't help you identify a plant on site as most of the illustrations are details. You would also have to start with the plant family to get to the plant and its' illustration. Generally if I know the family then I also know the plant, so I'm not sure how this format would help me. I get the impression that this is meant for botanists. When I bought it it had just come out and I don't think it was clear that it was geared to a scientific audience. Glenn Keator's other book took a more design-centered approach, I wish I had gotten it instead.

The book is a great guide to plant families in CA. The book has only line illustrations which help to clearly see the key features of each family. A few pictures would have been helpful, but also made the book a little more expensive. Coupled with other books of local plants (such as the Flora of the Santa Ana River for Southern California) will help your botany skills grow.

Glenn Keator is the man. He is one of the authors of the Jepson manual...and several other botany books that are incredible. The art is awesome. His descriptions are excellent. Anyone who is serious about plant ID...wants to know what family plants are in...as it can help ascertain a correct ID...and reveal common traits with others in the family. This book is a great intro to the most common plant families in CA...and will serve to train the devoted beginner...as well as botany pocket protector geeks like myself. I teach wild edibles and find myself referring to this book regularly. I am currently working to commit most of it to memory. Wish me luck!

This is a great book for the would-be botanist and professional botanist alike. It may not be that great for those who want to identify flowers by their color but for those of us who know how to use a key and enjoy refining their knowledge of California flora it is a great asset.

Great book to understand California plant families and to start identifying plants. Most plant ID books use genus definition to make a thick book that is hard to use for quick identification. Knowing a plant family gets you close.

This is a vast subject, which is difficult to address, but it is presented beautifully and informatively. The illustrations are excellent, and the content makes this a good reference book.

Pages come out very easily