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Book Reviews
A GUIDE TO PRAIRIE PLANTS
Wildflowers and Grasses of Kansas: A Field Guide. Michael John Haddock. 2005.
University Press of Kansas. 374 pages. $19.95 (paper).
Anyone who spends a considerable amount of time trying to identify plant
species is always searching for the perfect field guide. One that has color
photographs of flowers, stems, leaves, and roots, along with drawings that show
the characteristic features of each species and the differences between similarlooking species. And, of course, an easy-to-use key that helps you glide quickly
to the correct identification of the wilted little green stem you’re holding in your
hand.
Well, this book is not all of that. But it’s really good. Full of beautiful
photographs (324, to be exact) and a few drawings (18), the book is an excellent aid
to anyone looking at the more common species of grassland plants in Kansas and
adjacent states. The text accompanying the photo of each species is clear and
concise, with good information on habitat, range, and descriptions of each species,
as well as a few tidbits of ethnobotany and other topics of general interest. Like
most recent photo-based field guides of wildflowers, the species are organized by
flower color, but this book also has a handy “Finding Aid” near the back that
arrays all the species in the book into a dichotomous key. The key is simple to use
for anyone with a very basic knowledge of plant terminology (compound vs simple
leaves, entire vs lobed leaf margins, etc.). And if you don’t have that basic
knowledge, there is a very nicely written and illustrated section on plant
morphology in the introduction to the book. The author also has a very useful
website (http://www.lib.ksu.edu/wildflower/) with the same kinds of photos and
most of the same text, and additional plant species not found in the book.
I do have several criticisms of the book, but none of them is very serious. For
example, most of the species in the book are native, but there are a few non-native
species included. As an ecologist, I would like to have the information on whether
or not a species is native be more clearly presented. To find out whether a species
is native or not, you have to read through the “Comments” section for information
on where it was introduced from. In at least one case (green foxtail, Setaria
viridus), the fact that the species is non-native is not even mentioned.
In terms of identification, it would have been good to have more of the very
nice drawings that were provided, particularly because many of the photos show
mainly flower parts and very little else. For plants like asters (Symphyotrichum
spp.), this makes it very difficult to distinguish species because the flowers look
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much the same. The descriptions of the plants are pretty complete, but it would
have been helpful to have some clearly identified characteristics described that
would help differentiate between species that resemble each other. In a few cases,
as with Tradescantia species, the author did provide that kind of information, but
more of the same would have been wonderful. On the other hand, the author
makes it clear in his introduction that the book is not intended to differentiate
between subtly different species, so it’s hard to be too critical.
This book has more species of grasses (41) than most other photo-based field
guides I’ve seen and a sprinkling of the most common sedges and rushes (15). As
both an ecologist and photographer, I can sympathize with difficulty of photographing grass flowers in a way that shows all the characteristics clearly enough to
aid identification. It’s particularly hard with species with diffuse panicle flowers.
The author makes a valiant effort, though, and does a pretty good job overall.
Again, some drawings would have made those key characteristics much easier to
see, but as a quick reference the book does well.
My final comment may make me appear to be a real crank, but the book is a
little too big for me to carry easily in the field. At 5 ½ by 9 ½ inches in size, and
nearly an inch thick, it fits easily into a backpack, but not easily into the small hippack I normally carry in the field.
While I can always find criticisms of any field guide that doesn’t rise to the
level of “perfect,” this is a very attractive and useful book. I would strongly
recommend it to anyone working or interested in Kansas or surrounding states, or
to anyone who just enjoys grassland plants. It will certainly sit in a prominent
place on my bookshelf, if not in my hip-pack.–Chris Helzer, The Nature
Conservancy, Aurora, NE 68818.