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Fruit by Stuppy and Kesseler is packed full of gorgeous scanning electron micrographs (and other pictures too) and a lot of very detailed but very readable information. I can not reccomend it highly enough. Seeds and Pollen are also very good. I have not read it (just found it now, going straight on my wishlist) but The Bizzare and Incredible World of Plants, also by Stuppy is almost certainly excellent.

It's a bit technical and dry, but Plant Form, by Adrian Bell is one of my favorite reference books of all time. The information is fascinating, and the diagrams are gorgeous. There's a free online copy available (legal, I think) if you would like to have a look, but I would highly recomend a physical copy, and it's pretty cheap as far as reference books go. Flip through the section on Tree Architecture starting at page 296 for a sample of how cool it is. Read and understand that section and you will be amazed at the things you will start noticing about plants around you.

For plant ID, I can not reccomend Botany in a Day highly enough for a quite comprehensive tutorial in how to recognize plant groups (which makes it orders of magnitude easier to come up with a more specific ID). It's a classic, and is a required text for just about every field botany class.

Getting a good guide to your local plants that is based on dichotomous keys and diagrams rather than photos and learning how to use it is an absolute must if you want to move past the basics for IDing plants in your area. Without knowing your location, it's impossible to give good recomendations, but the Jepson Manual is a good example of what you should be looking for, and by far the best guide to California plants. Unfortunately these sorts of books are usually fairly pricey, and can be pretty impenetrable without practice (helps a lot if you already have a general idea of what it is), so you might hold off on getting one until a much later date. You can get older editions for cheaper, but at least in the case of Jepson's, most of the changes involve more diagrams and easier to use keys, so it might not be worth it.

There are loads of others that are slipping my mind at the moment, I will add them later if I remember.

Good job learning plant families! That's an excellent and valuable start. Next I would recommend finding a taxonomic key (flora) for your area - it's a comprehensive, organized guide to all the species. Learn to identify plants by the key, and you'll be well on your way to being a pro! If a flora is hard to come by, see what kinds of field guides you can get your hands on. Often they are cheaper, but not as comprehensive.
 
If you don't already grow plants, start a little garden of your own. You can learn different propagating methods (cuttings, layering, dividing rhizomes) as well as seasonal phenology. If this isn't an option, get in the habit of observing the same plant every day (ex: your favorite tree by your house or work).

 

Keep a journal of phenology events in your garden/routine: when did your tree leaf out in spring? When did it flower? How big were the fruits?, etc. Note how much rain/snow fell, temperature min/max, or what insects you observed. Over time, you'll see patterns develop which will be invaluable to seed collecting, planting cycles, or just damn interesting! There is so much to botany, but being able to see the changes that occur throughout the season is a critical skill. It's all the more personal when you grow your own plants, and if you're into ethnobotany I'd say being in touch (ha!) with the plants is paramount. :)

 

One more thought: if there are any native plant societies, consider joining. Small, local chapters usually have nominal fees, are a great way to meet other botanists, and depending on the organization you learn some really neat, detailed stuff that you might not get from a book (examples: local uses of plants, genetic diversity of alpine communities, important pollinators in your area).

 

Check out these resources:

• [Alper Ertubey's Flora of Turkey] (https://www.floraofturkey.com)
  
  
• [Flora of Turkey, Davis et al, 1966-85] (https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/series-flora-of-turkey.html) - pricey! I don't know where you are in Turkey, but try to go to a university library to see if they have a copy you can browse.
  
  
• [Plant Identification Terminology] (https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168) One things for sure, botanists love their vocabulary!
  
   
  
  Hope these ideas get you going! :)
  Good luck!
  
   
  
  Edit: added thoughts & resources; formatting

Of course! I really appreciate everyone's replies. You never really know what you are going to be greeted with on reddit in response to questions like this. Wikipedia had been an excellent friend. ;)

I am a botany undergrad, who just recently switched over from art, graphic design, etc. So speaking of friends, this book hasn't left my side. I am working on this paper with a professor and another student. It has been a great chance to get my feet wet, and figure out researching various literature in a way I haven't had to do before.

Anyways, I really appreciate everyone's responses!

I think your best bet in that part of the country, and with your level of experience is to start with a basic field guide. Look for a field guide for wildflowers of the Eastern USA. Your local nature center, etc, may have recommendations or a wide selection for sale. A good field guide will cover upland and wetland plants.

If you google "flora of new jersey" it looks like there's a group that is organized trying to create a flora for that state, as well as a native plant society. Both of these would be good groups to get involved with. If you tell the native plant society that you're a high school student interested in botany, I'm almost certain they would waive the membership fees for you.

Once you get more advanced with your identification skills and terminology, Gleason and Cronquist's flora of the Eastern US is a great resource. http://www.amazon.com/Manual-Vascular-Plants-Northeastern-Adjacent/dp/0893273651 It goes out of print often, but a used copy is just as good and will save you some money. Unfortunately, it's not a text for beginners and you're better off working with a simpler book with photos or drawings first.

Let me start by saying, that most botanical references are dry and dull. I have had my nose deep in technical keys for years, and they are by no means a pleasure to read. They are for the more advanced.
To begin, you must understand the terminology and the context for these terms. Let me recommend two books that I promise will bring you a foundational understanding.

Botany for Gardeners, or any of the other Capon books. He does an excellent job at discussing adaptations and morphologies, while addressing some of the key ecological concepts necessary for understanding plants.

Next is Flowering Earth by Peattie. I'd recommend anything by this guy especially the Western Trees and Eastern Trees books. He is a bit dated, having written this stuff in the early part of the 20th century, BUT, most of his dialogue is incredibly relevant, historically informative. and very well written (his mother wrote literature).

Finally, for just getting the nuts and bolts, use : Plant Identification Terminology. Great read for the toilet.

Like others have said, learning what characteristics plant families have makes plant I.D. so much easier. If this is something you really want to learn, I'd recommend a book like Wendy B. Zomlefer's Guide to Flowering Plants or Practical Plant Identification by James Cullen. Both of those should give you a rundown on common plant family characteristics and help you narrow it down at least to a family, if not a genus. Being able to accurately I.D. plants quickly is mostly practise, though; the more you do it, the easier it gets.

Though, because you don't think it's a native plant, once you have a rough idea of what it is, you can look at ornamental plants that will grow in your zone.

Taxonomy is the practice of describing, identifying, naming, and classifying life. The best way to start with plants is probably to start learning vocabulary. Plant Identification Terminology is a good book to get started. From there, learning the major plant families and the distinguishing characteristics of each family is great while keeping in mind the orders these major families are in. From there you can start focusing on genera within the families. I took a plant taxonomy course at my university and it was more or less structured in this way.

The Flora of the Pacific Northwest is the book you want. It has full keys. Picture guides specifically related to the northwest (like this and this) can be used to supplement this, but FPN is the best authority for most of that region.

"Wildflowers of North America" and Newcomb's Guide and things like that are not going to help you at all. They mostly cover Eastern species and there is rather little botanical overlap between there and the Pacific Northwest.

I like Zomlefer's guide to plant families. The line drawings are beautiful and thorough, and each family description includes distribution, major genera, representatives in North America, economically important taxa, and interesting commentary. A used copy is about $10.

I personally really enjoyed What a Plant Knows. It was the core reading for my intro to botany course, and it uses peer-reviewed academic papers to present cool topics on how plants interact with the world around us.

Edit: I saw you like Pollan too? How to Change Your Mind is a cool read for the crossover of botany, ethnobotany, and neurochem.

This timeless, easy to read book is still one of my favorites and had wonderful reviews.

Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1892784351/ref=cm_sw_r_fm_apa_i_mC4LDb8VEQD66

Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary

and

Mabberley's Plant-book: A Portable Dictionary of Plants, their Classification and Uses

They're both nice reference books.

Last Stands and Gathering Moss are fun reads. If there's a particular type of plant you like try finding books that talk about them.

You could definitely re-glue it or remove it if you'd like. It would be easier to water that way.

You could mist it using something like this, but even if you do that, it will still want a full watering some times. A full dunk. The misting is to provide supplemental humidity to recreate it's natural growing conditions

Sorry, and I forgot to mention - air plants dont like tap water. Spring water or rain water.

Fellow Minnesotan and Seed Analyst (Plant Biology degree) here!

I recommend having this book on hand for all of your greenhouse adventures: American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation: The Fully Illustrated Plant-by-Plant Manual of Practical Techniques
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0789441160/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_F8qQybT9GQCE7

It's full of photos and will provide you with endless practical advice as you're starting planties. I'm so excited for you and your students!

There is a book called "Pant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary" which does not identify any plants directly, but does teach you (and show you) how they are described. You will learn leaf shapes, flower types, different kinds of fruit and so on. Knowing these terms makes it easier to identify plants on your own, as you can describe the plant you found using the proper biological terms. It will also serve as a guide to decipher words found in technical botanical texts. I highly recommend this book!

I highly enjoyed What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses - by Daniel Chamovitz.

The author, Daniel Chamovitz, Ph.D., is the director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel Aviv University. He has served as a visiting scientist at Yale University and at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and has lectured at universities around the world. His research has appeared in major scientific journals.

The book debunks a lot of the common myths perpetrated about plants, including some of the famous experiments/results from "The Secret Life of Plants." The books goes on to explain in detail how plants can "see" (how they sense and are affected by different types of light), what types of things they can "smell", how they sense / react to touch, and so on.

Despite his very science-y background, the content of the book is presented in a very clear easy-to-understand way that is enjoyable to read. Even though the book is not about any particular plant (it focuses on plants in general) I learned quite a few pertinent facts that have already been helping me increase yields and plant health in my own garden.

If you’re in Michigan and looking more into field biology, I recommend these two books:

More ecology based:
https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Natural-Communities-Michigan/dp/1611861349


This is the best to ID native plants (older versions have pictures):
https://www.amazon.com/Field-Manual-Michigan-Flora-Edward/dp/0472118110

I love this one, especially if you want to know about gardening and horticulture.

If you want to know about plant physiology, phylogenies and ecology, I recommend this one.

Botany is incredibly vocabulary heavy so one I really love is the Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary.

It has a ton of botanical terms and is really handy if you have to look something up while keying out a specimen. I didn't know grasses had vaginas before getting this book. Now I do.

You may be interested in my favorite illustrated glossary

You could try:
The Botany Coloring Book

https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Coloring-Book-Paul-Young/dp/0064603024/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522820830&sr=8-1&keywords=botany+colouring+book
It covers pretty much everything a curious mind needs to get started on the topic....

Best ref imo http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0415308291

Have you read The Botany of Desire? I absolutely loved it.

a great place to start:
Plant Form

and if you get more into mathematical modeling...
Phyllotaxis

Botany in a Day is great for this kind of stuff.

• https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Day-Patterns-Method-Identification/dp/1892784351
  
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTsAFpSXj7Y <--- this guy is awesome

edit: someone already said my suggestion

Randomly picked up this book from the Uni bookstore, short, to the point, and focused on agriculture/gardening (as opposed to natural history). But I do not know how much it focuses on breeding though (not that far into it yet)


Botany for Gardeners: Third Edition

I've head only great things about What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses, by Daniel Chamovitz. Haven't read it yet myself but it's at the top of my list!

For me, that would be this one \^\^

Good luck with your further studies & good on you that you're already participating in your first paper!

(Not going to make a stupid joke a propos botany & graphics by linking to [this book](
http://www.amazon.com/Botany-Coloring-Book-Paul-Young/dp/0064603024/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0Z8CHXDBK6BC1PTHJX9P) - but by saying this, I already did.)

The Complete Book of Herbs introduced me to the medical herb garden. It's wonderful to see it executed so thoroughly. Great job, New York.

I know the absolute ultimate guide to flora in Michigan is the Field Manual of Michigan Flora by Edward Voss. It's seriously the bomb.

This book was extremely entertaining.

The Botany of Desire

https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Vascular-Plants-Northeastern-Adjacent/dp/0893273651/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526956589&sr=1-2&keywords=Manual+Vascular+Plants+Northeastern+United+States+Adjacent+Canada

This one should cover that area pretty well, however it does require a certain level of understanding of botanical terminology. It has no pictures but is very usable once you get used to it and it is compact enough to be carried in the field, barely.
I would also recommend looking in new and used book stores for older more local guides. Don't forget a good hand lens too.

I suggest you to read "Botany for gardeners" by Brian Capon (https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Gardeners-3rd-Brian-Capon/dp/160469095X). It's a good book to start learning botany.

This book has a lot of b/w line drawings of leave types like your example with about 15 pages on terminology just of leaves.

https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168/ref=sr_1_1?crid=CQR1ENGRKHZ6&keywords=plant+identification+terminology&qid=1557949176&s=gateway&sprefix=plant+identification+te%2Caps%2C127&sr=8-1

I am a big fan of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Day-Patterns-Method-Identification/dp/1892784351

If you want hardcore stuff, here is what I use:

• Flora of the Pacific Northwest - The full 5 volume set for all the illustrations
  
  
• Flora of North America around 30 volumes
  
  
• Biology of Plants by Peter (mother fucking) Raven
  
  
• Plant Systematics by Simpson
  
  
• Plant Identification Terminology
  
  

Yes, step one is learning to identify families. Another useful resource which stresses the family level is Botany in a Day. It's available in a handy dead tree version. It's most useful for native and naturalized North American plants.

Regardless of what you want to focus upon Plant Identification Terminology will come in handy.

Botany in a day. https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Day-Thomas-Elpels-Families/dp/1892784076

Anatomy of Seed Plants

Botany in a Day!

https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168

This is a go-to for many people.

Botany for Gardeners

Was just going to say!

https://www.amazon.ca/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168

Hi!
The link didn’t load for me. Is it this book by James Harris?