Tour

Geographic scope of this field guide: All field guides cover a particular region, and are most accurate for that area. However, since plants don't recognize political boundaries, many of these species can also be found in other states, or adjacent Canadian provinces, even as far away as the central Midwest. Observers may note variations in plant characteristics for a given species both outside the covered region and even within. As a general rule, if you live outside New England, the closer you live to these six states, the more likely it will be that this coverage is accurate for the plants you encounter where you live and roam.

About the species description pages: For each species described on this website, you will find at least one photograph which clearly shows a profile of the plant (its "habit"). In addition, there may be a second photograph which shows a detailed view of specific characteristics of the species that are important to know in order to identify it. There will also be information describing the typical preferred habitats of the species, the typical height ranges, blooming times and other details necessary for identifying the species. If all this information is insufficient, a more detailed version of this website will be available on a CD in the future. It will contain additional pictures and descriptions. No date for release of that CD is currently available. [ Top of Page ]

The Illustrated Glossary: One of the special resources of this website is the Illustrated Glossary. This topic is unavoidably technical. Visitors are encouraged to make use of the Illustrated Glossary for help with descriptions of taxonomical terms. For each scientific (Latin) term used here, a photograph and definition will be provided. Access to the Glossary is facilitated by providing hyperlinks to each term within the context in which it is used. Just click the hyperlink and a separate window will open to show you its meaning. Try it now. Click this link to see what I mean when I use the term "serrate". It's that easy. [ Top of Page ]

The Resources page: This page is a sort of "miscellaneous" page, but a very important one. On it you will find links to dichotomous keys to the species, cross-name references for the species (i.e., common names to scientific names), a bibliography of references used, and links to other useful websites - and more. [ Top of Page ]

Questions and Answers Page: Here you will find typical FAQs that will answer many of your questions about how the research for this site was conducted and about why certain conventions were followed. This is an important page! There will also be a link on this page to specific, important questions that visitors asked that are not covered in the FAQs. [ Top of Page ]