Peterson Field Guide (R) to Pacific States Wildflowers

This book is an old friend. We bought a copy for a granddaughter who is in the Forest Service.

If you are not familiar with dichotomous keys (perhaps in a college science class) this might seem a little confusing... but start your flower search with the keys before you go to the drawings/plates. You will find your subject more quickly than trying to match pictures. I think this the flaw in the Audubon Series. Plus you get an education of sorts. I just bought a new old copy of the book because my original 1976 copy was falling apart. I did this with great reluctance because over the years, I had created color plates with my colored pencils truly making the book even more useful. I spent many great days in the field finding and identifying wildflowers and then coloring my plates. Now... do I start over... or try to transfer the color plates to the new book? I got the vintage leather covered copy and it is magnificent. Think the vocabulary tough... get a copy of Phillip Munz, A California Flora and just start reading on any page...

Personally, I think the Peterson Guides are far more helpful than the Audobon publications. As mentioned in other reviews, Peterson uses illustrations organized by color and flower configuration. The illustrations are very well done. Audobon uses photos. The idea is that you match your specimen to the photo it most closely matches and follow further identification from there. The books are complimetary and work well together; however, if you can only choose one-- get the Peterson book. Overall, I have had much better success keying out plants with Peterson and repeatedly have found the plant I am looking for overlooked in the Audobon text. The truth be known, I doubt I will ever buy a Audobon plant book again-- perhaps they are better with birds.

I like the book and the topic, however the binding is is such bad shape that the book is useless in the field or for a more robust usage. Can this be fixed?

I take this guide (and the Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers-- west) on all my field trips to identify wildflowers. Though Peterson has fewer real photos, it does have better aids to identify specific wildflowers, as it is organized by color, as well as number and types of petals. The sketches help me do a preliminary id on the wildflower.