Acclaimed author, photographer, and North Carolina native Kevin Adams is your guide on this delightful series of colorful hikes through the Tar Heel State's high country. With lively text, beautiful photography, detailed maps, and informative wildflower profiles, this guidebook is sure to enhance and expand your appreciation of North Carolina's Appalachian landscape.

This informative field guide covers the wildflowers of the entire Appalachian region, which stretches from Quebec to northern Alabama, encompassing the Catskills of New York, the Berkshires of Massachusetts, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and many mountain ranges in between. Using this book, readers will learn to identify this region's wildflowers by shape, color, family, and habitat. Ecologist and botanist Thomas E. Hemmerly encourages us to "read the landscape" in order to learn about plants' habitats, distribution, and use. In his brief, introductory chapters, he describes ecosystems such as mountain forests and wetlands to provide a context for the information on individual plant species that will be valuable to both professional scientists and amateur naturalists. Practical: The 378 color plates, grouped by color for clear reference, appear alongside plant descriptions for ease of identification.Informative: Each entry includes a description of the plant's habitat, abundance, and geographical distribution, along with information about its ethnobotanical, economic, or medicinal uses. An appendix lists and describes the best places in the Appalachians for "botanizing."User-Friendly: Diagrams of leaf and flower shapes are a further aide to plant identification.The Appalachian Region: Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Quebec, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia

If you love waterfalls, here are some of the best hikes in the Southern Appalachians. And if you love plants--or simply would like to learn more about them--you will be in hiking heaven: naturalist Tim Spira's guidebook links waterfalls and wildflowers in a spectacularly beautiful region famous for both. Leading you to gorgeous waterfalls in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, the book includes many hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and along the Blue Ridge Parkway. As he surveys one of America's most biologically diverse regions, Spira introduces hikers to the "natural communities" approach for identifying and understanding plants within the context of the habitats they occupy--equipping hikers to see and interpret landscapes in a new way. Each of the 30 hikes includes: * a detailed map and GPS coordinates * a lively trail description highlighting the plants you are most likely to see, as well as birds and other animals along the way * an associated plant species list Also featured: * beautiful color photographs of 30 destination waterfalls, 125 plants, and more * detailed descriptions of 125 key plant species * 22 drawings to help identify plant structures * a glossary of botanical terms

More than 200 photographs of wildflowers organized by color, shape and blooming season. Clearly written descriptions include tips on identification and notes on plant usage by Native Americansand early settlers. Includes tour guide to 75 of the best sites for viewing wildflowers in spring, summer and fall.

A guide to over 200 waterfalls. Over 80 black-and-white and color photographs are included.

This richly illustrated field guide serves as an introduction to the wildflowers and plant communities of the southern Appalachians and the rolling hills of the adjoining piedmont. Rather than organizing plants, including trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, by flower color or family characteristics, as is done in most guidebooks, botanist Tim Spira takes a holistic, ecological approach that enables the reader to identify and learn about plants in their natural communities. This approach, says Spira, better reflects the natural world, as plants, like other organisms, don't live in isolation; they coexist and interact in myriad ways. Full-color photo keys allow the reader to rapidly preview plants found within each of the 21 major plant communities described, and the illustrated species description for each of the 340 featured plants includes fascinating information about the ecology and natural history of each plant in its larger environment. With this new format, readers can see how the mountain and piedmont landscapes form a mosaic of plant communities that harbor particular groups of plants. The volume also includes a glossary, illustrations of plant structures, and descriptions of sites to visit. Whether you're a beginning naturalist or an expert botanist, this guidebook is a useful companion on field excursions and wildflower walks, as well as a valuable reference. Southern Gateways Guide is a registered trademark of the University of North Carolina Press

This field guide dedicated to wildflowers of the Blue Ridge Parkway is an information-packed, pocket-sized book that introduces park visitors to the vibrant wildflower habitats along the Blue Ridge Parkway in a colorful and portable package. Including full-color photos and easy-to-understand descriptions, the wildflowers are arranged by color and family to aid in quick identification. With full cooperation from the park association, this book will appeal to the 16 million visitors who travel the Blue Ridge Parkway every year.