Natural History Wanderings

As you head up to the Sierra looking for wildflowers in the coming months you might want to take a look at the new Sierra Nevada Wildflowers guide by botanist Karen Wiese. There are half to full-page entries of 290 common wildflowers found in the Sierra Nevada. Each flower has a photo, description of the plant, the bloom season, habitat, range and other comments such as the source of the plant name or traditional uses of the plant. There are also descriptions of Sierra Nevada habitats, drawings illustrating plant parts and a glossary of botanical language used in the book. The book organizes plants by flower color which is particularly useful for the wildflower novice. One of the things I especially liked about the book is it is the first Sierra Nevada wildflower guide I have read that uses the new scientific plant names and families that are in the new version of the Jepson Manual (the authoritative flora for California).