[.ca] Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary (ISBN 0964022168)

Valuable tool for a field ecologist:
I am a plant community ecologist that prides myself in knowing many of the plants in the Intermountain West. However, myself and students are always finding new plants, especially as we move into new areas. My primary plant keys are the Intermountain Flora and Plants of the Pacific Northwest. Since I only key a couple months out of the year I forget many of the terms, needing a refresher as I start back out in the spring (my students call it winter death). My students and I find this book very useful and easy to use, particarly for beginning students. It is always with us in the field.

The second edition:
The second edition differs from the first mainly in a revision of the line-drawings which constitute the illustrations. In addition some entries were added and a much brighter cover was adopted. This is a great book for quickly making sure of a not entirely familiar term. This of course is also the big limitation: there is very little background info, which makes it a pretty shallow work. The idea of shallowness is reinforced since it indeed is written purely from a phytographer's point of view: it is limited to morphology only. When I have a real question I turn to Bell's "Plant_Form" which contains much more information. As I said this is a great book for a quick check, but nothing beyond that.

The best book available on the subject:
The title says it all. This is an illustrated glossary to the terms you may encounter while identifying plants. It is beautifully illustrated and the definitions are clear and concise. The book takes much of the pain out of using an identification key and is tremendously useful for both professionals and students. I disagree with a previous reviewer who characterized this book as "shallow" because it doesn't include detailed information about the terms included. That's kind of like labeling a dictionary as "shallow" because it doesn't provide encyclopedic entries. "Plant Identification Terminology" isn't intended to be a comprehensive guide to plant morphology. This is a wonderful book at a surprisingly reasonable price and for its intended purpose it is the only game in town - nothing else even comes close.

Great "Plant Dictionary":
Plant ID involves so much unfamiliar (to the layperson) terminology so that using just a field guide is often overwhelming. This is a great complementary book that is easy to use (alphabetical listing of terms, numerous diagrams) and understand. It is also thin and light, so it will not add excessive weight when carried in the field.

Extremely helpful companion to vascular plant key:
Very good visual and textual descriptions of plant parts-essential to working through a plant key. I recommend it for my college plant id lab.