front cover of Native and Ornamental Conifers in the Pacific Northwest
Native and Ornamental Conifers in the Pacific Northwest
Identification, Botany and Natural History
Elizabeth A. Price
Oregon State University Press, 2022
Most conifer guides available for the Pacific Northwest focus on native species observed in the wild. Native and Ornamental Conifers in the Pacific Northwest presents an integrated perspective for understanding and identifying conifers in any landscape where native and ornamental species grow alongside each other. It is suitable for landscape designers, horticulturalists, arborists, gardeners, environmental scientists, and botanists.

Based on her experiences teaching workshops on conifer identification and cultivation, Elizabeth Price has developed Jargon-free photographic charts, which allow for side-by-side comparison of conifer features and guide the reader to species identification. The charts are detailed enough for specialists yet accessible to amateurs.

The book includes extensive material on the characteristics, botany, and natural history of conifer plant families, genera, and species, all illustrated with original photographs. Research across many disciplines is blended with direct observation and personal experience, creating a book that goes beyond identification and is both rigorous and engaging.
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Nelumbonaceae to Vitaceae
Water Lotuses to Grapes
Robert H. Mohlenbrock
Southern Illinois University Press, 2010

In this fourth and final installment in the Aquatic and Standing Water Plants of the Central Midwest series, veteran botanist Robert H. Mohlenbrock identifies aquatic and wetland plants in eight central Midwestern states, which include Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Kentucky (excluding the Cumberland Mountain region), Missouri, and Nebraska.

Nelumbonaceae to Vitaceae: Water Lotuses to Grapes contains 346 highly informative and technically accurate illustrations as well as ecological information, nomenclature, and keys for plants in the aforementioned families, including white water lily, fireweed, smartweed, mild water pepper, hawthorn, and wild strawberry. Mohlenbrock identifies and describes each plant in concise and readable prose and indicates its usual habitats and the states in which it occurs.

As with previous volumes, Mohlenbrock organizes each species into three groups: truly aquatic plants, which spend their entire life with their vegetative parts either completely submerged or floating on the water’s surface; emergents, which are usually rooted under water with their vegetative parts standing above the water’s surface; and wetland plants, which live most or all of their lives out of water.

With Nelumbonaceae to Vitaceae, Mohlenbrock completes the four-volume series organizing and identifying wetland plants in the central Midwest. The botanical series will aid many, from teachers and students to state and federal employees, focused on conservation efforts and mitigation issues.

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Neotropical Rainforest Mammals
A Field Guide
Louise H. Emmons and François Feer
University of Chicago Press, 1997
Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, the first color-illustrated field guide to these marvelously diverse and elusive creatures, has enjoyed tremendous success since its initial publication in 1990. Ecotourists and field researchers alike have applauded this guide's compact size, light weight, and durability. More important, they have appreciated its clear and concise accounts of the mammals of this broad region. Each species account includes information on identifying characteristics, similar species, vocalizations, behavior and natural history, geographic range, conservation status, local names, and references to the scientific literature.

In this completely revised and updated second edition:

A total of 226 species are treated in full (206 were included in the first edition).

All species accounts retained from the first edition have been updated to include the most recent research.

All 195 maps showing the distribution and geographic range of each species have been revised to reflect the most current information.

Twenty-nine beautiful color plates illustrate more than 220 species (including significant color variants between males and females or adults and young). Seven black-and-white plates contain more than 60 images of individual species, mainly bats.

A compact disc of mammal vocalizations—crucial to identifying nocturnal and otherwise cryptic animals that sometimes may be heard rather than seen—will be available for purchase separately.

Praise for the first edition:

"If you can't go to the Central and South American rain forests to see firsthand their threatened ecosystems, here is the next best thing."—Washington Post Book World

"A large amount of information is presented concisely and in a way that is easy to use."—Choice

"The presentation and wealth of information contained in this field guide is outstanding and will satisfy the needs of both the 'tourist' and 'researcher' traveling to the Neotropics."—Canadian Field-Naturalist
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New Jersey Ferns and Fern Allies
Montgomery, James D.
Rutgers University Press, 1993

New Jersey is exceptionally rich in ferns, as three centuries of naturalists have recognized. Both amateur and professional botanists will welcome this new, complete, fully illustrated guide to the state's ferns and fern allies (the lycopods and horsetails). After an introduction to fern classification and nomenclature, the history of fern collecting, and the ecology and distribution of ferns within New Jersey, the authors describe eighty-three species, in thirty genera, and thiry-two hybrid forms (more than any other state). They include a fascinating account of the rare curly-grass fern, Schizaea pusilla, "New Jersy's most famous plant."

For each species, the authors provide a detailed drawing and comments on taxonomy, habitat, chromosome counts, habits of growth, and status as endangered species. Distribution maps show not only where plants have been collected, but also the time period for the most recent date of collectionÐÐa convenient way of showing the plant's spread or depletion. Throughout, the book reflects the latest research by fern experts.

An essential field guide and reference for naturalists, botanists, hikers, gardeners, and conservationists in New Jersey and the mid-Atlantic states.

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New Trees
Recent Introductions to Cultivation
John Grimshaw and Ross Bayton
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2009

This comprehensive volume, commissioned by the International Dendrology Society, covers more than eight hundred tree species that have been introduced to cultivation in the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America in recent decades. Up until now there has been no comparable source of information. Featuring horticultural notes from a network of growers and enthusiasts, backed up by data from recent scientific studies, the book presents a remarkable amount of information in a fashion accessible to amateurs as well as specialists. More than one hundred line drawings and nearly six hundred photographs—many portraying rarely seen trees—offer aids to identification. Introductory chapters covering conservation and modern techniques of tree-growing, and a comprehensive glossary and bibliography, round out the volume and make New Trees incomparable—and indispensable.

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The North American Grasshoppers
Daniel Otte
Harvard University Press, 1981

Daniel Otte offers a comprehensive taxonomic treatise on all known species of grasshoppers from the Gulf of Panama to Alaska. Grasshoppers are a dominant form of life in most terrestrial habitats. The abundance of grasshoppers and the ease of obtaining them have brought about their extensive use in a wide variety of biological studies. It is probably fair to say that grasshoppers are biologically better understood than any equivalent group of insects. They were used in pioneering studies in genetics and are increasingly being used to test evolutionary, ecological, and physiological theories. Unfortunately, much of this work is still based on a poor classification, and many studies are hindered by difficulties which arise in identifying the species.

Now for the first time scientists are provided with:

– Illustrated keys and lists for distinguishing genera and species;
– Information on distributional limits, habitat preference, ecology, behavior, and life cycle;
– A list of pertinent references;
– Point distribution maps;
– A taxonomic index as well as a history of name changes.

But the book’s most spectacular feature is the author’s detailed drawings of all species in full color. The North American Grasshoppers will be especially useful to scientists in agriculture, environmental assessment, biogeography, grassland ecology, and insect taxonomy, and will also appeal to amateur naturalists. Undoubtedly, it will long stand as a definitive reference in its field.

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