"This field guide displays wildflowers that grow within about five miles of the City of San Luis Obispo... contains over 290 plant species."--P. 3.

Wildflowers of Orange County and the Santa Ana Mountains includes Orange County, Santa Ana Mountains, Whittier-Puente-Chino Hills, Prado Basin, Temescal Valley, Elsinore Basin, Santa Rosa Plateau, San Mateo Canyon wilderness area, and San Onofre State Beach. This publication is a novice-friendly, technically accurate guide to wildflowers of cismontane southern California. Tailored to Orange Country and adjacent portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego Counties. it will prove a useful tool to identify and learn plant families, genera, and species in the Golden State.

California Plants is an essential resource for outdoor enthusiasts. With his vibrant photographs and lively writing, Matt Ritter takes the reader on a journey through the Golden State's iconic landscapes and abundant plant life. This definitive guide features more than 500 species, along with detailed descriptions, fascinating natural history stories, and handy tree and wildflower color identification charts.

This book tells the story of the area's botanical wonders in the format of an easy-to-read natural history guidebook. This part of California boasts an impressive diversity of plants, with more than 1,300 different native species (more than in the entire state of Alaska) and countless other introduced weeds and horticultural plants. The book vividly portrays the beauty, diversity, and history of the abundant and widespread wild and weedy plants in the area surrounding the city of San Luis Obispo and western portions of the California Central Coast. Matt Ritter's succinct, non-technical prose is richly illustrated with the author's photographs of landscapes, plants, and flowers. Over 150 full-color pages describe the habitat, botany, ecology, edible or medicinal properties, uses by Native Americans, etymology, and gardening uses of more than 200 plants. Encyclopedic in scope and full of interesting facts and stories, this comprehensive naturalist's guide is a wonderful overview of a historically and botanically rich area. Matt Ritter is a member of the Biological Sciences Department and Director of the Cal Poly Plant Conservatory at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. He teaches courses in general biology, general botany, and plant diversity and ecology. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in microbiology from U.C. Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in biology from U.C. San Diego.

In this photograph-driven field guide to California’s spectacular wildflowers, Laird R. Blackwell expertly provides several ways to find them in bloom: by month, by place, and by flower. The month-by-month descriptions—found in no other statewide guide—suggest what to see and where to go throughout the state during the blooming season. The author also supplies more than 300 locations arranged in 10 geographical regions, highlighting 67 of his favorite places with detailed driving and walking directions and difficulty, blooming times, and lists of predominant wildflowers as well as a featured flower. The guide contains more than 650 color photographs by the author, including 600 species arranged by flower, with natural history notes and places and months to find the flower in bloom. Throughout, experienced wildflower guide Blackwell shares his love of the beautiful places and flowers he has visited throughout California.

"Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change" is a 12 x 12'' beautifully illustrated and designed 264 page coffee table book created by conservation photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter.Illustrations: 190 stunning images of California's diverse wildflowers and their habitats, from high mountain passes in the Sierra Nevada mountains to below sea level in Death Valley National Park.Essays: Sixteen talented and diverse authors and scientists, most of whom are women, wrote 18 storytelling style essays (1,200 to 1,800 words) about nature, conservation, climate change or taking action. The two younger authors write about hope and action, and what people can do to help create positive change. The book has three sections: The Gift of Beauty, The Human Connection and Ensuring the Future.Because people are constantly hearing about all the negative things going on in the world, Nita and Rob believed there was a need for a different, softer approach to grab people's attention and center it on the climate-change story, and conservation and population issues. They engage their audiences by first inviting them to experience the splendor of the natural world through a universal symbol of beauty, the wildflower, and then educate and inspire them to take some of the simple actions they provide to create positive change and a healthier planet. Their goal is to spread conservation and climate change ideas far beyond native plant and nature lovers, and to plant the seeds to foster action."Beauty and the Beast" is a 27 year photographic journey into the public lands of California. Lands we all own, lands under constant threat of development or resource extraction, impacts of global warming, sea level rise and wildfires. This book is as much a treasure as the flowers and creatures which are featured within its pages. Nita and Rob extend a hand to you to come in and take a long, slow look around and see what they have seen, experienced and have learned. Book includes two comprehensive indexes and a glossary.Co-published by WinterBadger Press and the California Native Plant Society