Now available in paperback, The Secrets of Wildflowers is destined to be an indispensable book for anyone who loves and admires the natural world. Few things in nature beautify the world more than wildflowers. Their countless colors and endless designs are found almost anywhere—from fields to woods, deserts to ponds, and even in junkyards, dumps, and cracks in the pavement. The Secrets of Wildflowers, Jack Sanders’s colorful tribute, is bursting with odd facts and wonderful superstitions about some of North America’s most beautiful and common plants. Reader's will find natural history, folklore, habitats, horticulture, ingenious uses past and present, origins of names, and even their literary pedigrees. Far richer and eminently more varied than any field guide, The Secrets of Wildflowers contains more than 100 species of North American wildflowers organized by blooming seasons. Wildflowers are not just pretty to look at; they are an essential part of our environment. How they grow and what they do are often overlooked, and how they have been used has largely been forgotten. They feed insects, birds, animals, and even humans. They hold and condition the soil, and they are used in modern medicines and natural remedies and appear throughout history in art and literature. The Secrets of Wildflowersprovides detailed information on more than one hundred representative species of North American wildflowers.

'I adored The Wildflowers. A sweeping, epic, moving read' Marian Keyes/font size The new novel by Sunday Times bestseller Harriet Evans will transport you to a Dorset beach house, where you can feel the sand between your toes. Enter the home of Tony and Althea Wilde - the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor of their generation and with a marriage every bit as stormy. This glorious tale of tangled family secrets and lies will leave you warm and glowing. font size="+1"'A wonderful, engrossing novel, full of the most vivid characters and a truly memorable setting. A triumph' Sophie Kinsella 'She reels you in and then you're hooked, right to the last page' Patricia Scanlan 'Atmospheric and altogether wonderful' Lesley Pearse 'I love it on so many levels, the immense feeling of place, the slow, irresistible sense of being drawn deep into the family and its story, and the strange hovering of menace somewhere in the idyll. Wonderful' Penny Vincenzi 'Her characters are finely drawn and as the story hops back and forth from the Second World War to the present day, the reader becomes deeply immersed in this charismatic family's fortunes. The result is that rare and lovely thing, an all-engaging and all-consuming drama' Daily Mail Tony and Althea Wilde. Glamorous, argumentative ... adulterous to the core. They were my parents, actors known by everyone. They gave our lives love and colour in a house by the sea - the house that sheltered my orphaned father when he was a boy. But the summer Mads arrived changed everything. She too had been abandoned and my father understood why. We Wildflowers took her in. My father was my hero, he gave us a golden childhood, but the past was always going to catch up with him ... it comes for us all, sooner or later. This is my story. I am Cordelia Wilde. A singer without a voice. A daughter without a father. Let me take you inside. Harriet Evans is 'perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes and Maeve Binchy' Best

LIfe stories of 105 wildflowers, grouped according to their most frequently occurring color; brief description, scientific and common names; place and season to find them.

The story of Louisa May "Wildflower" McAllister whose life has been shaped around the recent death of her beloved father in a sawmill accident. While her mother hardens in her grief, Wildflower and her three sisters must cope with their loss themselves, as well as with the demands of daily survival.

This volume presents a detailed description of more than thirty-five wildflower species of the Northeast, describing their colors, habitats, range, pollination, history, cultural lore, medicinal uses, and literary and artistic references. The spring-blooming wildflowers looked at range from old favorites to lesser-known species. Featuring more than 500 full-color photos in large-sized format, the book delves deep into the life histories, lore, and cultural uses of more than 35 plant species. The narrative covers topics such as the naming of wildflowers; the reasons for taxonomic changes; pollination of flowers and dispersal of seeds; uses by Native Americans; related species in other parts of the world; herbivores, plant pathogens, and pests; medicinal uses; and wildflower references in history, literature, and art. The photos capture the beauty of these plants and also illustrate the concepts discussed in the text.

"Surely such a familiar landmark and its flora need no introduction. But leaf through the book (or better yet, get Brown and Choukas-Bradley to take you on a tour) and you realize that while the rest of the world has been looking at Sugarloaf through a telescope, this intrepid pair has been using a magnifying glass.... Their record of these trees and wildflowers] has become one of the most complete guides to local upland flora available, and they hope it will be used not just in other natural areas but in back yards where people want to raise native plants themselves."--Washington Post "In between a field guide and a botanical manual, Choukas-Bradley and Brown have created a must-have... to tote into the woods of Sugarloaf Mountain. The authors have included every flowering plant they observed during ten years of extensive hiking and exploration on Sugarloaf. This guide would be useful to any naturalist, serious or casual, venturing into the wilds of the Northeastern United States and adjacent Canada."--E-Streams "This book contains an easy-to-use, non-technical botanical key for flowering plants--herbaceous and woody alike.... The author describes each plant and its individual parts, all related species, and details on the plant's growth habit, its natural range and habitat, its bloom time, and where it can be found on Sugarloaf Mt."--Solidago: The Newsletter of the Finger Lakes Native Plant Society A thorough yet user-friendly companion to the authors' popular paperback Sugarloaf: The Mountain's History, Geology, and Natural Lore, this volume is an exquisitely illustrated guide to 350 eastern woodland wildflowers and trees found onsite at Sugarloaf Mountain, Maryland. It includes a botanical key and an illustrated glossary of common and scientific names, and is packed with nearly 400 elaborately and artistically detailed pen-and-ink drawings to make plant identification simple and fun. Melanie Choukas-Bradley is the author of City of Trees: The Complete Field Guide to the Trees of Washington, D.C. and a longtime contributor to the Washington Post. She teaches field botany for the USDA Graduate School. Tina Thieme Brown has worked as a landscape artist and environmentalist for twenty-five years. She teaches art at the U.S. Botanic Garden, is an artist on the Countryside Artisans Studio Tour, and creates art inspired by the Sugarloaf Mountain countryside in her 1790s log cabin studio. Choukas-Bradley and Brown lead Sugarloaf Mountain field trips for the Audubon Naturalist Society of the Central Atlantic States and other organizations. Published in association with the Center for American Places

Like the winter, grief has a season. Life returns with the spring. A young architect at a prestigious Chicago firm, Bethany Quinn has built the life she dreamed of during her teen years in a trailer park. An unexpected interruption from her estranged mother reveals that tragedy has struck in her hometown and a reluctant Bethany is called back to rural Iowa. Determined to pay her respects to her past while avoiding any emotional entanglements, she vows not to stay long. But the unexpected inheritance of five hundred acres of farmland and a startling turn of events in Chicago forces Bethany to come up with a new plan. Handsome farmhand Evan Price has taken care of the Quinn farm for years. When Bethany is left the land, Evan must fight her decisions to realize his dreams. But even as he disagrees with Bethany’s vision, Evan feels drawn to her and the pain she keeps so carefully locked away. For Bethany, making peace with her past and the God of her childhood doesn’t seem like the path to freedom. Is letting go the only way to new life, love and a peace that she’s not even sure exists?