Wisconsin Flora: An Illustrated Guide to the Vascular Plants of Wisconsin
by Steve W. Chadde
QK194 .C5 2013
New Arrivals, 2nd floor
After all the crazy, cold weather we’ve had lately, the only criterion I had when choosing an item to feature for this week’s New Stuff Tuesday was it had to be about something warm. I perused the New Arrivals Island, and the photo on this book’s cover jumped out at me. A flower! With SUNLIGHT shining on it! And GREEN leaves! I was sold.
Unfortunately, the photo on the cover is the only color photograph in the entire book. But Wisconsin Flora: An Illustrated Guide to the Vascular Plants of Wisconsin is 784 pages of information about the vascular plants of Wisconsin, including hundreds of line drawings. It describes over 2,100 species, with maps of county distribution. It describes a plant’s stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, and more. The book is organized into four major groups: ferns and fern relatives, conifers, dicots, and monocots.
Now, you may not know what a dicot or a monocot is (I didn’t), but Wisconsin Flora holds the promise of sunshine and warm temperatures. If for no other reason, that makes this book a must-see.