Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America by David Brandenburg

This is a book review for native plant gardeners about a new comprehensive field guide. Written by botanist David Brandenburg, National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America is a durable portable tool for identifying native plantings in natural environments. Wildflower gardeners will find it a reliable resource for recreating a native planting at home.

Field Resource Plant Identification Keys

Readers will find the plant identification keys in the Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America were designed for easily toting around uncultivated countrysides. The pliable book cover is waterproof and the pages are glossy thick. The front cover is tri-folded with a metric and inches ruler lining the vertical edge. The black and white foldout key is a quick field resource of flower and leaf parts, flower, leaf and leaf base shapes and flower clusters.

The how-to-use-this-book page is useful, especially for novices new to plant identification. The ‚”A Key to Colors and Shapes” section displays a black and beige silhouette of individual flower forms matched with a series of colorful flower photos labeled with page numbers directing the reader to the more detailed species section. There are 2,200 species listed in the field guide.

Non Native North American Introduced Species

Wildflower gardeners will be very interested in the ‚”Introduced Species” section. Whether called exotics, non-natives, or introduced species, wildflower conservationists see these plants as adding confusion to the discussion about which plants are worthy to include in a native garden.

Among introduced species are flowering garden plants mistaken for wild blooms seen along untamed roadsides. The ox-eye daises confused with Shasta daisies or the ditch lily not a true lily but rather the non-native Hemerocallis fulva, an orange daylily, are examples.

Brandenburg briefly discusses the issue here and later under ‚”Conservation,” where he elaborates on the negative effect to natural plant communities by introduced species. In this section are the species plant names, descriptions and page numbers, also linking back to the larger main species section.

Ohio Botanist from Dawes Arboretum

David Brandenburg is the author of National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America. Brandenburg is a native of Ohio where he now works as a taxonomic botanist at Dawes Arboretum. David Brandenburg is a member of the Society of Economic Botany.

Brandenburg has been a botanist for more than 40 years. He was curator of the herbarium at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York and then a field botanist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Field Guide Sponsored by National Wildlife Federation

The National Wildlife Federation sponsored a series of field guides: birds, insects and spiders, trees and, the fourth, the National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America. Written by David Brandenburg, it was published by Sterling Publishing, April 2010. The book has 672 pages filled with 4019 color photos, distribution maps and plant identification keys. Wildflower gardeners or any reader interested in this field guide can use ISBN 978-1-4027-4154-8 to locate this book.

While most plant field guides cover regions, a resource book with wildflower information covering the North American continent is a useful tool for gardeners touring a wider range of native plant habitats. Plant enthusiasts can be aided by what is found out in the field to recreate an authentic wildflower garden at home.

Detailed credits for individual photos on page spreads are also listed in the back of the book.