Free Plant Identification Field Guides
9/29/2020
This article covers obtaining free materials to get serious about identifying plants in the Southeastern United States. Yet can be applied for plants of other locations.
I use multiple resources to identify plants:
Field Guides
USDA Plant Database
BONAP
SEINet
Field guides are my #1 go to source for plant identification. I have a library of about 12 books. Some are better than others. They all have limited coverage of a particular region of the United States. Keys, description of plants, and arrangement of material can differ among books. Some of the books I use are available free for download on the internet.
A good source for free plant identification guides (As well as other biological texts) is from the Biodiversity Heritage Library https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/.
The first book I recommend to download is:
Small, John. 1933. Manual of the southeastern flora being descriptions of the seed plants growing naturally in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Eastern Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
You can manually search for it at https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ or I will try to link it here Small.
There are other versions, some older, but this is the version of the hard copy book I have in my hand.
This is a great book to use, and has many pictures of plants. A problem can be the current name for plants, thus the need to look up other plant identification reference material.
The second book I recommend to download is:
Weakley, Alan. 2015. Flora of the southern and Mid-Atlantic states. Chapel Hill.
Here is the main page for the guide. Although I could not find the 2015 version on that page, I found it available here Weakley.
There are other versions, some older, some may be newer from the time of this post. Do check it out the website for updates, and perhaps keys that are more specific to your needs!
This is perhaps the most comprehensive, best key for plants of this region. It is free and available electronically. The downside is that it can be challenging to use. It is a great reference for current plant names.
The next set of books apply additional reference material, adding different descriptions. I find it helpful to look at different books because they may add one descriptive characteristic of a plant that removes doubt to a species I have identified.
The third book I recommend to download is:
Chapman, A and Daniel Eaton. 1860. Flora of the Southern United States: containing abridged descriptions of the flowering plants and ferns of Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida: Arranged according to the natural system. New York: Ivison, Phinny, & Co.
You can manually search for it on https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ or I will try to link it here Chapman.
There are newer version available, I chose this version as I am holding it in my hand.
This book covers a lot of plants and adds descriptions that are often different from other books. But many plant names listed have changed.
The forth book I recommend to download is:
Britton, Nathaniel and Addison Brown. 1896-1898. An illustrated flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the British possessions. Volume 1-3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
There are different versions, but the hard copy in my hands are of 3 separate books.
You can manually search for it on https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ or I will try to link it here Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3.
There are different versions available, and pages may have differences when they are referenced. Covers a lot of plants, adds descriptions that are often different from other books. But lots of the names have changed.
To solve the naming problems, I utilize the USDA Plant Database. You can enter the name of the plant and it will often bring up any synonyms that plant may have. For example, Sarracenia variolaris is listed in Chapman. If you enter that plant name into the USDA Plant Database it will return Sarracenia minor. This has helped me with naming conflicts. It doesn't always work as with Amaryllis atamasco that is listed in Chapman. But if he had spelled it Amaryllis atamasca, then Zephyranthes atamasca would have been returned.
In addition to field guides and ways to help any naming confusion, I utilize location information that can be found from BONAP. For many plants, the location is provided to the county level of occurrence; here is an example. It is a good reference that can help. Do note, it is not complete as plants may occur where they are not shown to occur.
When books and locations still have me in doubt, I then refer to herbarium specimens. I utilize SEINet. Correct names help, then it becomes a study of the different pictures. Dried plants are different than living.
Internet searches for images helps.
Besides Weakley, most of the available free guides are old, outdated. Yet flora doesn't change too much besides some of the names. I add resources to my list as I find them and determine them to be very useful!
Use these resources to Identify Plants!
Thanks for reading!
Have a Great day!
