Plants of Inland Northwest and Southern Interior British Columbia

This is a truly excellent book and goes well beyond the normal expected for a field guide. This book is so comprehensive and well illustrated with drawings and extremely high quality photos that an average observer could pick nearly any plant growing in the region covered* and identify it by simply flipping through the pages looking at pictures. For the more difficult to ID species the book is arranged taxonomically, has many dichotomous keys, and similar species are compared to each other on the same or nearby pages. This is all the more amazing because the habitats of the region are quite varied but the book excels at identifying from the alpine zone to the valley floors. This guide in addition to accounts of trees, shrubs, and wildflowers has sections for all the mosses, lichens, ferns, liverworts etc, with the same level of detail and high quality photographs, allowing the beginning naturalist to progress from the more common species to the smallest and most inconspicuous. In addition to detailed descriptions of the plants to aid in identification, each entry provides extensive additional information about the natural history of the plant. Much information about native uses of the plants edible, medicinal, and useful. On top of this, entries also sometimes have information about how to collect and propagate species to grow them in your own yard in support of native landscaping. Finally, the book is of reasonable portable size and printed on durable high quality pages and construction and can be easily packed in the day pack or backpack on trips of plant observation, hiking, or picnic. *Though it focuses on Interior British Columbia this will be useful to the US Resident as well for the province does not respect the international boundary and extends some distance into East-side Washington up to the Cascade Crest in the west and into Idaho in the east. I have used this book in the Methow Valley area of interior Washington and it would provide a suitable guide for many areas of east-side northern Washington and parts of Idaho.

I already owned Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar et al., but was sad I couldn't use it once I went over the pass. This book fills in my plant field guide gap! I haven't had the chance yet to use it as extensively as I've used Pojar, but it looks like the same useful format, clear photos, and descriptions of native uses and where the common and scientific names came from. The book is arranged first by growth form (tree, shrub, forb, etc.) and then taxonomically. So if I'm looking up a forb, I generally have to flip through almost the entire forb section to find what I'm looking for, but I'm really trying to get better at recognizing what family a plant is in, so I should get better at this eventually. Overall, love the book.

I bought this book 3 years ago and totally love it.The plant info and the photographs are beautiful. A lot of the info comes from Natives and give the readers information on what the plants can be used for like remedies for toothaches etc. The photographs, over 1000 of them, are all done in colour and are absolutely beautiful. I would have paid 3 times the amount for this book. A must for the outdoorsman.