Floristic & Plant Resources at the Library

For over a decade, artist Jimmy Fike traveled across the continental United States in an epic effort to photograph wild edible flora. Edible Plants is the culmination of that journey, featuring over 100 photographs that Fike has selectively colorized to highlight the comestible part of the plant. While the images initially appear to be scientific illustrations or photograms from the dawn of photography when plants were placed directly on sensitized paper and exposed under the sun, a closer look reveals, according to Liesl Bradner of the Los Angeles Times, "haunting [and] eerily beautiful" photographs. Beyond instilling wonder, Fike's contemporary, place-based approach to landscape photography emphasizes our relationship to the natural world, reveals food sources, and encourages environmental stewardship. His clever and beautiful method makes it easy to identify both the specimen and its edible parts and includes detailed descriptions about the plant's wider purposes as food and medicine. Sumptuously illustrated and delightfully informative, Edible Plants is the perfect gift for anyone curious about unlocking the secrets of native North American plants.

The flora of Armenia is one of the most diverse and interesting in the world and includes many favourite garden plants and their relatives. Tamar Galstyan has travelled the length and breadth of her native country to bring us this essential companion for plant enthusiasts and botanists that describes more than 1000 plants including bulbs, herbaceous plants, woody plants, grasses and ferns. Spectacular photos bring the plants vividly to life and each entry includes a full plant description to aid identification and accompanying distribution map. This is a wonderful way of getting to know the plants of this fascinating country whether exploring at home or in the field.

Plant Perspectives to Global Climate Changes: Developing Climate-Resilient Plants reviews and integrates currently available information on the impact of the environment on functional and adaptive features of plants from the molecular, biochemical and physiological perspectives to the whole plant level. The book also provides a direction towards implementation of programs and practices that will enable sustainable production of crops resilient to climatic alterations. This book will be beneficial to academics and researchers working on stress physiology, stress proteins, genomics, proteomics, genetic engineering, and other fields of plant physiology. Advancing ecophysiological understanding and approaches to enhance plant responses to new environmental conditions is critical to developing meaningful high-throughput phenotyping tools and maintaining humankind's supply of goods and services as global climate change intensifies. Illustrates the central role for plant ecophysiology in applying basic research to address current and future challenges for humans Brings together global leaders working in the area of plant-environment interactions and shares research findings Presents current scenarios and future plans of action for the management of stresses through various approaches

Botanists and seed collectors Rod and Rachel Saunders set out on what seemed to some to be an impossible mission - to find and photograph, in full bloom, all gladioli species found in South Africa and to collect and share their observations in a field guide. They had found all but one species before their untimely deaths at the hands of kidnappers in a forest in KwaZulu-Natal.In the wake of this tragic event, friends and colleagues collaborated to keep the Saunders' dream alive. This book is the result their collective efforts.Gladioli are showy bulbous plants that fall within the Iris family, and the bulk of species are endemic to South Africa. Comprehensive and lavishly illustrated with more than 1,300 photographs, this guide covers the 166 Gladiolus species known to occur in the region.The book is divided into seven taxonomic sections, according to the species' distinguishing features. Each species is presented on a double-page spread, with a full plate of color photographs, including close-ups of diagnostic features, different color forms and habitats. Botanical descriptions cover identification (corm, cataphyll, spike, bracts, anthers, pollen, capsules, seeds, and scent), distribution, pollination, conservation status, and notes on ecology and the authors' personal observations in the field. Distribution maps and flowering periods are given for each species, and tables highlight differences between similar-looking gladioli.There are almost 300 recognized species, widely distributed across Africa, Europe and the Middle East, with more than half of the species found in southern Africa, making this book useful to botanists world-wide, as well as to horticulturist, propagators, students, gardeners and anyone with an interest in natural history.

This user-friendly field guide to 600 wildflowers found in North America is organized by color and alphabetically to enable wildflower enthusiasts and nature lovers to identify and learn about the natural and cultural history of flowering plants. Color photographs accompanied by plant descriptions, range, flowering periods, and other natural history notes such as historical uses, etymology, pollinator associations will entice and educate readers from coast to coast.