KU MEMORIAL UNIONS
MEDIA RELEASE
Contact:
Lisa Eitner, Oread Books, phone: 785-864-4431, email: oreadbooks@ku.edu
Michael John Haddock to sign new University Press of Kansas title
Wildflowers and Grasses of Kansas at Oread Books
Michael John Haddock will present his new book Wildflowers and Grasses of
Kansas: A Field Guide at a book signing from 5:30 – 7:00 PM Wednesday, April
27, 2005 at Oread Books in the Kansas Union on the University of Kansas
campus in Lawrence. The event is free and open to the public.
Wildflowers and Grasses of Kansas, published this month by the University Press
of Kansas, is the first book on Kansas wildflowers or weeds to appear in 25 years
and the only field guide to Kansas plants ever published with color photos of
grasses, sedges, and rushes. The book contains a total of 325 full-color
photographs, many of plants found throughout the Great Plains as well as in
Kansas. The conveniently-sized paperback guide includes the state’s most
common species as well as those encountered less frequently and not often
listed in other guides.
The guide is designed to be user-friendly, with handy “finding lists” to help nonspecialists determine the basic vegetative and floral features which help narrow
the number of possible matches leading to identification. Wildflowers are
arranged first by dominant color groups for quick identification, then by family
within each color category. Each entry for flower or grass includes a complete
profile: scientific name, family, common name(s), flowering period, height,
distribution and habitat, life span, basic morphological characteristics, and notes
on historical food and medicinal uses.
Michael John Haddock is an agricultural librarian and science libraries web
coordinator at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. A childhood interest
in prairie plants sparked by his father’s knowledge of range plants on the family
farm in north-central Kansas has extended through his work as a university
professor. Haddock began working extensively with native plants in 1996 when
he created the “Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses” website,
www.lib.ksu.edu/wildflower. The site now includes more than 380 species and
around 1600 photographs.
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