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Florida Wildflowers: A Comprehensive Guide

“Identifying wildflowers is a popular pastime for many gardeners and lovers of wildlife. But many botanical identification books just aren’t user-friendly. Pick up wildflower expert Walter Kingsley Taylor’s latest offering and you’ll find out just how much fun it is to track down the flower on the side of the road.”—Tampa Tribune“Goes a step beyond the norm of being just a field guide. It is an absolute inspiration and incentive to get out into the woods.”—Palatka Daily News“If you would like to attend a fascinating and informative lecture by one of Florida’s foremost experts on the state’s wildflowers and where they may be found—all in the comfort of your own home—by all means, read this book.”—Orlando Sentinel“Taylor’s guide will help readers recognize and identify wildflowers in a different way, not principally by their color or family group, but by where they’re most likely to be found growing—their natural habitat.”—Gainesville Sun“This new field guide is the best yet for Florida wildflowers. . . . Each entry includes a description, time of flowering, habitat, Florida distribution, and often a comment field that discusses related species, etymology, and even culinary and landscape uses.”—Floridata “Taylor’s unorthodox approach has garnered positive comments from casual, weekend hikers as well as those with a professional interest in wildflowers. . . . It has remarkably broad appeal, because it’s so clear and well done and because the photos are excellent.”—Lakeland Ledger“In this unique and refreshing approach to a wildflower guide, photographs visually illustrate the natural plant community described at the beginning of each community section. . . . An excellent and most useful guide.”—Choice Walter Kingsley Taylor’s Florida Wildflowers in their Natural Communities was wildly praised for its beauty, ease of use, and unique organizational structure: plants were described in the context of where they grow, making identification much simpler—and more rewarding—for the casual hiker or wildflower enthusiast. Vastly expanded and updated with new taxonomy, this volume provides detailed information on more than 450 species included in the earlier edition and nearly doubles the number of species included by expanding coverage into wetlands.

Paperback: 576 pages

Publisher: University Press of Florida; COM edition (April 16, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0813044251

ISBN-13: 978-0813044255

Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.3 x 9.3 inches

Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #154,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #11 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Wild Plants #23 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > By Region > South #87 in Books > Science & Math > Biological Sciences > Plants > Flowers

Since moving back to Florida years ago, I've been on the lookout for a great wildflower guide. I spent years in Washington State studying the local flora and fauna there, and ethnobotany and herbology and aromatherapy, and I was interested in expanding my knowledge to the native flora of South Florida. I found a couple of books of interest, but nothing that quite fit the bill. Then I came across this book.This book is a beauty! First there is the cover and binding. Thick, glossy, high-quality. Very impressive. The inside book cover has those handy flaps that are great for helping you save your place in the book. The book is paperback, but the cover is made from high-quality stiff paper that is going to hold up to field work and minor moisture contact.The book is chock full of information, maps and diagrams. The state of Florida is divided up into four areas: Panhandle, North Florida, Central Florida and South Florida. It breaks down how to identify flowers by flower structure, flowering times, and distribution.And although this is a wildflower book, it also describes Florida forests: Slope Forest, Upland Hardwood Forests, Mesic Hammocks, Uploand Mixed Woodlands, Sandhills and Upland Pines, Scrubs, Pine Flatwoods, Dry Prairies, Coastal Uplands, Shell Mounds, Pine Rocklands (Subtropical Pine Forests), Rockland Hammocks (Tropical Hardwood Hammocks), and Ruderal Areas (Disturbed Areas). And it describes Florida Wetlands in detail.That's the first 78 pages. Then there are 400 pages of colorful wildflowers, along with trees, shrubs, and palmettos, all organized by forest or wetland area in which it may be found.

A book for the nature lover, researcher, bicyclist, and hiker – anyone who traverses the Florida landscape and pauses to say – what’s that plant?Walter Kingsley Taylor, professor emeritus of biology at the University of Central Florida, has traipsed all over Florida gathering information for Florida Wildflowers. Taylor is also author of A Guide to Florida Grasses.Florida Wildflowers sorts plants into regions such as hardwood-forested uplands, pine flatwoods, wetlands, and more, covering the entire state of Florida, and making each search to identify plants a joy. It’s easy. Plants are photographed in their natural state. Books that have line drawings of plants tend to all look the same to me. This is not an issue in Taylor’s book. The author does not stop at wildflowers – but photographs and writes about trees, shrubs, and pretty much anything that grows. If you are out on the trail biking or hiking and spot a plant, I’m betting that it will be in Taylor’s book. Thus far, I’ve found data on each bit of greenery that I wanted information on.As a writer of fiction that takes place in Florida, I want to have the correct plant in the right place, whether it is growing in sand, loam, red clay, rich black earth, or bogs. As Taylor demonstrates, Florida sits at a latitude where the major deserts of our Earth occur—yet our state is known for green luxurious growth. The humidity gifted to our state by the Gulf Stream helps create this atmosphere and moderates temperatures that otherwise would indeed reflect the deserts of Africa and Mexico, to name only two. In Florida, you are no more than 100 miles from the salt water at any point.

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