front cover of Common Woody Plants and Cacti of South Texas
Common Woody Plants and Cacti of South Texas
A Field Guide
By Richard B. Taylor with Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
University of Texas Press, 2014

Woody plants and cacti are vital staple foods for cattle, deer, and other wildlife in drought-prone South Texas. Ranchers, hunters, and land managers who need to identify these plants relied on A Field Guide to Common South Texas Shrubs (published by Texas Parks & Wildlife Press and distributed by UT Press), which is no longer in print. Responding to ongoing demand for the book, Richard B. Taylor has completely updated and expanded it with seven new species, new photographs, and a quick plant identification key.

Common Woody Plants and Cacti of South Texas is an easy-to-use plant identification field guide to fifty species that comprise an estimated 90 percent of the region’s woody canopy cover north of the Rio Grande Valley. The species accounts include photographs, descriptions, values to livestock and wildlife, and nutritional information. The book also provides historical perspectives and information on brush management techniques and strategies, as well as habitat appraisal. All of these resources will enable readers to analyze stocking rates for deer and cattle, evaluate a prospective hunting lease, or buy property.

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front cover of A Field Guide to the Families and Genera of Woody Plants of Northwest South America
A Field Guide to the Families and Genera of Woody Plants of Northwest South America
With Supplementary Notes on Herbaceous Taxa
Alwyn H. Gentry
University of Chicago Press, 1993
To understand almost any part of the tropical rain forest's fabulously complex web of life, one must first learn to identify a bewildering array of plants. Alwyn Gentry's landmark book, completed just before his tragic death in 1993, is the only field guide to the nearly 250 families of woody plants in the most species-rich region of South America.

As a consummate field researcher, Gentry designed this guide to be not just comprehensive, but also easy to use in rigorous field conditions. Unlike many field guides, which rely for their identifications on flowers and fruits that are only present during certain seasons, Gentry's book focuses on characters such as bark, leaves, and odor that are present year-round. His guide is filled with clear illustrations, step-by-step keys to identification, and a wealth of previously unpublished data.

All biologists, wildlife managers, conservationists, and government officials concerned with the tropical rain forests will need and use this field guide.

Alwyn Gentry was one of the world's foremost experts on the biology of tropical plants. He was senior curator at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and was a member of Conservation International's interdisciplinary Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) team, which inventories the biodiversity of the most threatened tropical areas. From 1967 to 1993 he collected more than 80,000 plant specimens, many of them new to science.
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front cover of Guide To The Trees Shrubs & Woody Vines
Guide To The Trees Shrubs & Woody Vines
S. Eugene Wofford
University of Tennessee Press, 2002
Tennessee is home to more than four hundred species of woody plants, but until now there has been no comprehensive guide to them. This work fills that gap, as B. Eugene Wofford and Edward W. Chester provide identification keys to all native and naturalized species of trees, shrubs, and woody vines found in the state.

The book is organized by plant types, which are divided into gymnosperms and angiosperms. For each species treated, the authors include both scientific and common names, a brief description, information on flowering and fruiting seasons, and distribution patterns. Photographs illustrate more than ninety five percent of species, and the text is fully indexed by families and genera, scientific names, and common names. A glossary is keyed to photographs in the text to illustrate definitions.

In their introduction, Wofford and Chester provide an overview of the Tennessee flora and their characteristics, outline Tennessee’s physiographic regions, and survey the history of botanical research in the state. The authors also address the historical and environmental influences on plant distribution and describe comparative diversity of taxa within the regions.
Guide to Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Tennessee will be a valuable resource and identification guide for professional and lay readers alike, including students, botanists, foresters, gardeners, environmentalists, and conservationists interested in the flora of Tennessee.
 
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front cover of A Key to the Woody Plants of the New Jersey Pine Barrens
A Key to the Woody Plants of the New Jersey Pine Barrens
Geller, Michael D
Rutgers University Press, 2002

Within southern New Jersey lies the largest expanse of undeveloped land in the megalopolis between Boston and Washington, D.C. This is the Pine Barrens, our nation’s first National Reserve, where visitors are struck by how much the vegetation varies from surrounding areas. Because the sandy soil is only marginally suitable for most agriculture and because the location amounts to a peninsula, settlement has been limited and the current ecology is relatively untouched. However, as New Jersey’s population increases, people are looking to the Pine Barrens with a new interest.

A Key to the Woody Plants of the New Jersey Pine Barrens is a hand-illustrated, user-friendly guide for both the interested student and weekend naturalist. The key lists all of the woody plants of the Pine Barrens except for a few rare, non-native species. In several keys and more than fifty highly detailed drawings, Michael D. Geller describes the basic features of woody plants and explains how to identify plants both in summer and winter.

Along with his set of workable identification keys, the author provides an enjoyable introduction to the geology, ecology, and history of the region, and relates each to the unique flora of the Pine Barrens. The book provides readers with an effective means of identifying the plants that are hallmarks of one of the state’s last wild areas.

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front cover of Midwestern Native Shrubs and Trees
Midwestern Native Shrubs and Trees
Gardening Alternatives to Nonnative Species: An Illustrated Guide
Charlotte Adelman, Bernard L. Schwartz
Ohio University Press, 2016
In this companion volume to the bestselling The Midwestern Native Garden: Native Alternatives to Nonnative Flowers and Plants, Charlotte Adelman and Bernard L. Schwartz offer another indispensible guide to replacing nonnative plants with native alternatives. This time, their subject is the native woody species that are the backbone of our gardens and landscapes. Among other ecological benefits, native shrubs and trees provide birds and butterflies with vital food and reproductive sites that nonnative species cannot offer. And they tend to be hardier and easier to maintain. The authors provide a comprehensive selection of native woody alternatives that, season by season, provide effects similar to those of nonnative shrubs and trees used for ornamental purposes and shade. These plants are suitable for all garden styles, provide blooms and fall color, and have the same cultivation requirements as their nonnative counterparts. Nature notes alert readers to the native species’ unique ecological roles. Unlike other gardening guides, Midwestern Native Shrubs and Trees goes beyond mere suggestion to provide gardeners with the tools they need to make informed, thoughtful choices. Knowing which native species to plant for desired effects empowers landscapers and gardeners to take on a greater role in protecting our midwestern environment.
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front cover of WOODY PLANTS IN WINTER
WOODY PLANTS IN WINTER
by Earl L. Core and Nelle P. Ammons
West Virginia University Press, 1958

A manual to identify trees and shrubs in winter when the lack of leaves, fruits, and flowers makes them least identifiable, Woody Plants in Winter has become a classic for naturalists, botanists, gardeners, and hobbyists. Earl L. Core and Nell P. Ammons, both West Virginia University Professors of distinction, originally published this book with The Boxwood Press in 1958. Now in its fifteenth printing, the title has come home to West Virginia University Press.

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front cover of Woody Plants of Utah
Woody Plants of Utah
A Field Guide with Identification Keys to Native and Naturalized Trees, Shrubs, Cacti, and Vines
Renée Van Buren, Janet G. Cooper, Leila M. Shultz, and Kimball T. Harper
Utah State University Press, 2011

A comprehensive guide that includes a vast range of species and plant communities and employs thorough, original keys. Based primarily on vegetative characteristics, the keys don't require that flowers or other reproductive features be present, like many plant guides. And this guide's attention to woody plants as a whole allows one to identify a much greater variety of plants. That especially suits an arid region such as Utah with less diverse native trees. Woody plants are those that have stems that persist above ground even through seasons that don't favor growth, due to low precipitation or temperatures.

Woody Plants of Utah employs dichotomous identification keys that are comparable to a game of twenty questions. They work through a process of elimination by choosing sequential alternatives.

Detailed, illustrated plant descriptions complement the keys and provide additional botanical and environmental information in relation to a useful introductory categorization of Utah plant communities. Supplementary tools include photos, distribution maps, and an illustrated glossary.

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front cover of Woody Plants of Western African Forests
Woody Plants of Western African Forests
A Guide to the Forest Trees, Shrubs and Lianes from Senegal to Ghana
William Hawthorne, and Carel Jongkin
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2006
Woody Plants of Western African Forests is an illustrated guide to the identification of 2200 trees, lianes and shrubs found in the forests of West Africa, from Senegal to Ghana. This is all the woody plants and more than 80% of the higher plants in the forests of this region, known to biogeographers as Upper Guinea. This represents 5% of all flowering plant genera in the world—1% of the species — so the book is relevant to anyone interested in tropical plants, especially but not only in the forests of tropical Africa.

Laid out as keys and with short descriptions of each species, it contains over 5,600 photographs, line drawings and maps. And, while many guides only offer hints to naming plants when they are not in flower, here the authors have based identification on leaves, bark, shoots, scent ,taste and other characters easily observed at most times.

Funded by the European Union, through its ECOSYN project (based at Wageningen University), which supports forest biodiversity and management in Upper Guinea, this magnificent, beautiful book is an indispensable reference for everyone committed to the conservation and sustainable development of Africa’s forest.
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