(Part 2) Best plants in biological sciences books according to redditors

I love the Falcon Guides for wildflowers

Southern California Mountains Wildflowers

Mojave Desert Wildflowers

This book is stupid but very useful. It is just drawings of foot prints and poop.
Scats and Tracks of the Desert Southwest

Another stupid simple book. This time it is an animal next to the hole it makes.
A Field Guide to Desert Holes

I'm glad you asked! I love learning what things are, so I'm happy to share. This should be apparent by the time I'm done with my data dump. First off, when in Alaska and where? That will depend on how useful some of these things are.

I use PeakFinder for mountain names. The desktop version is free, but the app is $4.99 and worth every penny. It will only show peaks, and not lakes, glaciers, or other formations. I use the Delorme Atlas for those. That's too unwieldy to take on hikes, though.

For birds, I know the President of the Anchorage Audubon Society uses iBird for an app, so that must be decent. There's a free demo version, but the full app is $14.99. For the Anchorage coastal area, I mostly use this checklist. If you can tell a duck from a sparrow, you can narrow down your bird substantially and use websites to find the right one. Although the list is specific to Anchorage, and results are very different in places like Seward or Fairbanks. If you're into bird identification, you'll get farther learning how a few birds sound rather than how they look.

The Eagle River Nature Center has a few events throughout the summer that help novices with identifying plants, birds, trees, and other animals. There are also guided bird walks at Potter Marsh and Campbell Creek Science Center throughout the summer.

For flowers, I'm not aware of any great apps. I do know of some good books. This is the best pocket-sized book for berries. This is my favorite for flowers. For all types of plants, this book is amazing. It's thick and heavy, so you won't be taking it hiking, but it's a wealth of information. Outside of Discovering Wild Plants, I would buy the other books used at Title Wave in Anchorage.

Trees are easy. I'm not sure you need an app. Here's a pamphlet from the Forest Service. Basically, if it looks like a Christmas tree it's probably a spruce. If it has big glossy leaves, it's a balsam poplar/black cottonwood. If it has smaller serrated leaves, it's probably a paper birch. That covers 90% of what you'll see in Alaska for trees. There are others like willows, alders, hemlock, tamarack, but the pamphlet can help with those.

There are subreddits specifically tailored to identify things like plants, birds, insects, trees, etc., so if you're stumped, take some pictures and post it online.

This is the gold standard.


https://www.amazon.ca/Southern-Interior-British-Columbia-Northwest/dp/177213077X/

You, my friend, want to be a backpacker. Rules on backcountry camping vary by location. GrtScott linked to the rules at Cherokee National Forest! A lot of time local businesses (or you could also find online) will sale trail guides that someone writes and gives you all best information on the trails. These trail guides usually give more detailed information on finding a good campsite in the area. (like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Cherokee-National-Forest-Outdoor-Tennessee/dp/157233374X)

There's so many. Sooooo very many because the wide range in elevation from negative sea level to over 10 thousand feet, and proximity to the ocean and out to the desert creates a large number of ecosystems, some of which are ecological islands with many of their own unique species of flora and fauna.

My books are packed for at least the next 2-3 weeks, but let me see if I can find some of them on Amazon.

Edit: Here's a couple books.

• Sonoran Desert Food Plants
  
• Introduction to California Chaparrel
  
  I also like this little book, but as I said, southern California is extremely diverse, so you only see a few things in the book at any one location.
  
  
• National Audubon Society Field Guide to California
  
  There's also the Jepson manuals, but they're expensive, and you might hate them unless you're into botany.
  
  What I usually do is take a bunch of pictures, then review them in my books at home and on the computer, but I'll take all my books if I'm car camping for over a week.

I love reading this stuff too. I’m a very outdoorsy person. So, if you want a nice non portable book about trees, there’s the david allen Sisley guide to trees. For portable, there are a lot more. The Audubon book is good, it just hasn’t been updated in a longtime. The Peterson guide is more recent and is good also. I’ll try to think of the books we have. My mom has a lot and has ones from her parents too. One that’s good is the national wildlife federation book on wildflowers. A new book that cool is one called wildflowers of the Appalachian trail. On trees, I really like an old edition of the golden guide to trees that we have. The Audubon guide to eastern us trees is good. I think Peterson is better than Audubon though. There is also a forestry department book on trees of around here that I have from middle school. Don’t worry, I’ll provide links to these books.

https://www.amazon.com/Sibley-Guide-Trees-David-Allen/dp/037541519X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481660&sr=1-1&keywords=Sibley+trees

https://www.amazon.com/GOLDEN-GUIDE-Herbert-Alexander-Martin/dp/B000KIITZK/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481704&sr=1-3&keywords=Golden+guide+trees

https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Eastern-Trees-Including/dp/0395904552/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481730&sr=1-1&keywords=Peterson+trees

https://www.amazon.com/Audubon-Society-Field-Guide-American/dp/0394507606/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481747&sr=1-1&keywords=Audubon+trees

https://www.amazon.com/Wildflowers-Shenandoah-Valley-Ridge-Mountains/dp/0813908140/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481845&sr=1-3&keywords=Blue+ridge+wildflowers

https://www.amazon.com/National-Audubon-Society-American-Wildflowers/dp/0375402322/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481845&sr=1-10&keywords=Blue+ridge+wildflowers

https://www.amazon.com/National-Wildlife-Federation-Wildflowers-America/dp/1402741545/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481922&sr=1-2&keywords=national+wildlife+federation+field+guide

https://www.amazon.com/Peterson-Field-Guide-Wildflowers-North-central/dp/0395911729/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481968&sr=1-1&keywords=Peterson+wildflowers

https://www.amazon.com/Wildflowers-Appalachian-Trail-Leonard-Adkins/dp/1634040902/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524481991&sr=1-1&keywords=Wildflowers+of+the+Appalachian+trail

http://www.shopdgif.com/product.cfm?uid=2051408&context=&showInactive=N

I’m going to post again once I go look at our bookshelf. This was just off the top of my head. Oh and it’s not a field guide, but you should read a walk in the woods by bill bryson.

I started out with All That the Rain Promises and More and I definitely recommend it. However, I would also recommend that you consider having more than one book. For one thing, having multiple pictures can be helpful since every mushroom you find in the field is unique and having multiple images to compare has been helpful for me. Also, it can be helpful to have more than one key model. For me this has helped me realize that there can be multiple ways to arrive at an ID and that there is no one way to do it. My other two books are Mushrooms Demystified and Mushrooms (this one is only OK, but it has pictures for every mushroom and as I said previously this has been helpful to compare to pictures in other books).

These two are specific to Mesembs, but are REALLY good:

http://www.vivante-passerelle.net/index.php/en/mickael-legrand/38-the-art-of-growing-mesembs

https://www.amazon.com/Mesembs-World-Illustrated-Remarkable-Succulent/dp/1875093133

Required Reading: Conifers of the Pacific Slope: A field guide to the conifers of California, Oregon, and Washington

Required Reading: Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope

Pick & Choose: New-to-Seattle reading list, 25 essential nature books

Nice to have: Ancient Forests of the Pacific Northwest

Nice to have: Conifer Country: A natural history and hiking guide to 35 conifers of the Klamath Mountain region

Nice to have: Timberline Mountain and Arctic Forest Frontiers

A Californian's Guide to the Trees among Us https://www.amazon.com/dp/159714147X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_sFHACbRWA2R33

If you're interested in the actual workings of modern firefighting, from the Incident Command Team down to the firefighter on the ground, I suggest Fire Line: Summer Battles of the West!

It's more of a coffee table book, but great (though somewhat outdated) photos and a great overall view of the workings of the fire fighting machine at work!

Actually, it's not a moss. It's either a cyanobacteria or an alga + fungi. At any rate, here are a list of cool books I've found:

Lichens of North America

Lichens - Natural History

The Magical World of Moss Gardening - this one has tips to cultivate lichens

Macrolichens of the PNW - even if you're not from this region, it's still an amazing book.

Lichens of the North Woods

Hi, I graduated with a degree in Natural Resources a few years ago. Your basic 100 level courses are most likely going to be general science courses like Chemistry, Biology, and some math. Here are some of the books I used and enjoyed in my upper level courses, though you might not get into these for a few years yet: A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, Evolution by Douglas Futuyma, The Economy of Nature by Robert Ricklefs, Introduction to Wildlife Management by Paul Krausman, The Origins of Modern Environmental Thought by J.E. de Steiguer.


I don't recommend you buy any of these textbooks, because your college probably will use different textbooks. Of course if you think they sound interesting or you find a cheap copy by all means go ahead, but many schools will use a slightly different version, or if your teacher is published, they may want to use their own books. I liked these ones and if you read it I'm sure you could learn a lot, but it might not all be relevant to what your current classes are.

Also I'm sure some of your books will depend on your part of the country, I went to school in the Southwest so many of my books are geared towards issues like water conservation and one of my favorite textbooks A Field Guide to the Plants of Arizona, we also used Mammals of California, you might buy Mammals of North America and another local guide depending on where you are, I had to buy two (California and North America) for my mammalogy class.

I took a lot of elective biology classes for my general biology credits towards my degree. Your school may not have the same classes, or use the same textbook, or you may not be interested, but here are some other books I'd recommend. Most are 'fun' books and read more like a narrative and are normal book length instead of chapter books. You can learn from reading them but they are set out more like a story than a textbook crammed full of data. The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, Alex & Me by Irene Pepperberg, The Devil's Teeth by Susan Casey, Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat, Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem & Jonathan Prince, Evolutionary Medicine Edited by Trevathan, Smith, & McKenna, Endgame by Derrick Jensen, Why We Get Sick by Randolph Nesse & George Williams.

Anyway hope this was useful and you got some good ideas, feel free to ask me for further information about anything! I don't think you should worry about being the oldest kid in your class, there are plenty of older people there than you and I think having a bit of maturity will help in your studies. Good luck!

Spirits Of the Garden: Mind Altering Species In the Backyard https://www.amazon.com/dp/1514326515/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_iNeeBbPVNT7ZD

Also a very informative book from him

I personally know nothing about Hawaii, but I highly recommend finding a local book. perhaps:
https://www.amazon.com/Mushrooms-Hawaii-Identification-Don-Hemmes/dp/1626541825

Don't know any groups, but I snack as I hike and run. I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of Pojar, it's not foraging specific, but one of the best books on local plants around.

http://www.amazon.com/Treasures-Kingdom-Fungi-Featuring-Photographs/dp/097094490X

> Coast redwood: a natural and cultural history by cachuma press

https://www.amazon.com/Coast-Redwood-Natural-Cultural-History/dp/096285056X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Coast+redwood%3A+a+natural+and+cultural+history+by+cachuma+press&qid=1566451069&s=gateway&sr=8-1

A friend of mine wrote a book about exactly this, check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/URBAN-FORAGING-Finding-eating-plants/dp/1450707513