A comprehensive and easy-to-use guide to the most important wildflowers in the state. Includes detailed descriptions and full-color photos of more than 500 wildflowers, a glossary of botanical terms, and 25 botanical illustrations.

This guide features stunning color photographs of 300 common wildflowers from Ocala National Forest, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, the Disney Wilderness Preserve, Archbold Biological Station, and Paynes Prairie State Park among others. Detailed descriptions and full-color photos aid the reader in identifying plants in the field.

Florida is home to an entire library of native plants that evolved to thrive in its range of climate regions. Native Plants for Florida Gardens profiles 100 Florida native wildflowers, shrubs, vines and trees that can transform typical Florida landscapes. Striking color photography showcases species and flowering characteristics. With the expertise of the Florida Wildlife Foundation, anyone can create lovely, low-maintenance gardens that will tolerate Florida’s roughest conditions, resist disease, and support biodiversity.

"Identifying wildflowers is a popular pastime for many gardeners and lovers of wildlife. But many botanical identification books just aren''t user-friendly. Pick up wildflower expert Walter Kingsley Taylor''s latest offering and you''ll find out just how much fun it is to track down the flower on the side of the road."--Tampa Tribune "Goes a step beyond the norm of being just a field guide. It is an absolute inspiration and incentive to get out into the woods."--Palatka Daily News "If you would like to attend a fascinating and informative lecture by one of Florida''s foremost experts on the state''s wildflowers and where they may be found--all in the comfort of your own home--by all means, read this book."--Orlando Sentinel "Taylor''s guide will help readers recognize and identify wildflowers in a different way, not principally by their color or family group, but by where they''re most likely to be found growing--their natural habitat."--Gainesville Sun "This new field guide is the best yet for Florida wildflowers. . . . Each entry includes a description, time of flowering, habitat, Florida distribution, and often a comment field that discusses related species, etymology, and even culinary and landscape uses."--Floridata "Taylor''s unorthodox approach has garnered positive comments from casual, weekend hikers as well as those with a professional interest in wildflowers. . . . It has remarkably broad appeal, because it''s so clear and well done and because the photos are excellent."--Lakeland Ledger "In this unique and refreshing approach to a wildflower guide, photographs visually illustrate the natural plant community described at the beginning of each community section. . . . An excellent and most useful guide."--Choice Walter Kingsley Taylor''s Florida Wildflowers in their Natural Communities was wildly praised for its beauty, ease of use, and unique organizational structure: plants were described in the context of where they grow, making identification much simpler--and more rewarding--for the casual hiker or wildflower enthusiast. Vastly expanded and updated with new taxonomy, this volume provides detailed information on more than 450 species included in the earlier edition and nearly doubles the number of species included by expanding coverage into wetlands.

"This is the first photographic identification guide to have an extensive discussion of plant communities and to organize plants by plant community . . . of interest to anyone desiring to identify Florida flowering plants--individuals who enjoy the outdoors, amateur naturalists, teachers, students, and professional biologists."--Walter Judd, University of Florida Walter Taylor's guide will help readers recognize and identify wildflowers in a different way, not principally by their color or family group, but by where they're most likely to be found growing--their natural habitat. This book is the first of its kind for Florida. Taylor provides detailed descriptions and color photos of each community--pine flatwoods, sandhills, upland pine forest, scrub, temperate hardwood forest, coastal uplands, subtropical pine forest, tropical hardwood hammock, and ruderal sites--and of the wildflower species associated with each. For each flower, he provides the scientific and common names, a brief description, flowering time, habitats, geographical range, color photo, and miscellaneous comments. While most of the flowers are herbaceous, Taylor also includes characteristic woody types. He makes special mention of endangered or threatened species and species of special concern. The guide includes a number of limited-distributed species that have never been published in a book of this type. With individual photos (taken in the field) of more than 450 wildflower species, the most accurate range information available, and organization by ecological community, Taylor's guide aids not only in wildflower identification, but also in appreciation of the Florida landscapes that support them. By linking flowers with their natural habitats, it highlights the need to protect these ecologically unique communities to ensure survival of the wildflowers themselves. In addition, it offers a new resource for gardeners interested in planting native species. Walter Kingsley Taylor is professor of biology at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, and the author of The Guide to Florida Wildflowers. He has lived in Florida for thirty years.

Winner of the 2005 Klinger Book Award Presented by The Society for Economic Botany. Florida Ethnobotany provides a cross-cultural examination of how the states native plants have been used by its various peoples. This compilation includes common names of plants in their historical sequence, weaving together what was formerly esoteri

Many counties in Florida now require that new commercial landscapes contain a percentage of native plants. Native landscapes are easier to maintain, use less water and thrive without chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Native Florida Plants describes every type of regional flora—-from seaside foliage and wildflowers to grassy meadows, shrubs, vines, and aquatic gardens—-in 301 profiles and accompanying color photographs.