The Plants Of Pennsylvania

The second edition of The Plants of Pennsylvania is the authoritative guide to identifying the nearly 3,400 species of flowering plants, ferns, and gymnosperms native or naturalized in the Commonwealth. It features a complete reorganization into a genetic scheme that reflects recent advances in our understanding of plant relationships.

The definitive guide to Pennsylvania's plant life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson defined a weed as a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. To the wild-plant enthusiast who has discovered the virtues of many plants, there are relatively few weeds. After using this book, you will never again consider lamb's-quarters a weed. Instead, you will nurture it with respect and even encourage its growth in your garden. Edible Wild Plants of Pennsylvania and Neighboring States contains botanically accurate, up-to-date information essential for the identification of more than one hundred delectable wild plants. Each plant entry provides characteristics, habitat, distribution, edible parts, food uses, precautions, and preparation, followed by tasty recipes and interesting remarks about the plant's botanical history. The plants are arranged according to height, with the ground-huggers appearing first and the trees last. Each plant is also cross-referenced by common and scientific names. The authors have written this book with the novice forager in mind, including useful tips on foraging from where to search for food to precautions to take. They also provide a list of toxic look-alikes, a nutrient composition chart, and a glossary of terms.

Three hundred million years ago, ferns dominated the earth's surface, forming extensive marshes and forests with heights of over twenty-five meters. Today, ferns and their allies are still abundantly represented in the plant world, with somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 species identified and recognized. These nonflowering, nonseeding, highly vascular plants make up a major and ancient division in the plant kingdom called Pteridophytes. In the state of Pennsylvania, one can find more than 100 species of these highly specialized plants. While ferns are by far the largest division of the Pteridophyte group in the state, horsetails, clubmosses, spikemosses, and quillworts are the lesser-known members, frequently misidentified as relatives of more modern flowering plants. With more than 190 color photographs and descriptions of 96 different plants, recognizing each Pteridophyte is a relatively easy matter. The photos of the plants show them growing in their natural settings, which helps to establish a clearer picture of the common characteristics of the families and their likely habitats. Maps illustrate the distribution of the various species throughout the counties of Pennsylvania and across the United States. Taxonomic keys are also included for each of the groups to assist in identifying the plants based on their biology. Finally, the book provides the most common local names for the plants, making it useful for both the amateur naturalist and the professional botanist.

From the Delaware River to the shores of Lake Erie, Pennsylvania's diverse watery habitats are home to more than 200 species of aquatic plants. In Aquatic Plants of Pennsylvania: A Complete Reference Guide, botanists Timothy A. Block and Ann Fowler Rhoads have assembled the first identification guide specific to the Keystone State yet useful throughout the Mid Atlantic region. Organized and written in a way that will make information easily accessible to specialists and nonspecialists alike, the book highlights the diversity and vital ecological importance of this group of plants, providing photographs, illustrations, descriptions, and identification keys for all emergent, floating-leaved, and submergent aquatic plants found in the Commonwealth. An introductory chapter on aquatic plant ecology covers topics such as evolution, form, and reproduction of aquatic plants, vegetation zones, types of aquatic ecosystems, and rare and endangered species. Information on invasive plants, such as Eurasian water-milfoil and curly pondweed, that threaten Pennsylvania's aquatic ecosystems will be especially useful to watershed organizations, citizen monitoring projects, lake managers, and natural resource agency personnel. An illustrated identification key guides the reader through a series of steps to properly identify a specimen based on its characteristics. Each of the more than 200 listings provides a plant's taxonomy, detailed description, distribution map, and expert botanical illustrations. Many also include color photographs of the plants in their natural habitats.

Excerpt from Flora of Pennsylvania Dr. Porter began the collecting and study of the plants of Pennsylvania about the year 1836 and continued both, essentially without interruption, until his death in 1901. He personally explored nearly every part of the State; but the Information thus obtained represents only a portion of the data recorded on the following pages. His connection with several Colleges in Pennsylvania for a period of over fifty consecutive years gave him a wide acquaintance with intelligent persons throughout the State, and those interested in plants, more especially the students who came under his influence, did all in their power to enlarge his collection of specimens, so that his State Flora might ultimately be essentially perfect. Thus, through personal exploration and the enthusiastic Cooperation of others for a period of over sixty years, the herbarium upon which this Flora is based contains plants brought together from all of the sixty-one counties of Pennsylvania. Professor Porter's ambition to make his list of Pennsylvania plants complete led him to defer printing it from time to time. So averse was he to giving his work to the public before the list of native plants was complete, that when death overtook him in his eightieth year, the work which he had endeavored to make perfect remained unpublished. However, the manuscript was nearly completed many years ago and was left with most of the more recent discoveries properly recorded. Being so earnestly interested in the botany of Pennsylvania and desiring that others might ultimately have the benefit of his studies, he made provision for its publication in his will. After the author's death, at the request of his executor, Professor S. A. Martin, I consented to edit the manuscript. I had long been intimately acquainted with Dr. Porter and with his work, and during frequent interviews, the flora of Pennsylvania and the form in which it should be published was often the main subject of conversation and discussion. Being thoroughly acquainted with the author's ideas, I can confidently say he would heartily subscribe to everything on the following pages. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Grasses are among the most ubiquitous plants on the planet. They inhabit a wide geographic range and are found in a variety of natural habitats. The small parts of the grass flower and specialized terminology, however, can make identifying grasses a challenging endeavor. Sarah Chamberlain’s Field Guide to Grasses of the Mid-Atlantic makes identification simpler for everyone—regardless of their previous botanical knowledge. Featuring an easy-to-use dichotomous key, this is a user-friendly guide to more than 300 types of grasses found from the Blue Ridge Mountains and southern plains to the Appalachians and the Allegheny Plateau. Each major entry contains detailed species diagrams as well as common names, habitats, and distribution. The book’s opening sections outline the parts of grass flowers and describe stem, leaf, and sheath characteristics. With a wealth of illustrations, instructions on how to use the key, and a glossary of terms, Field Guide to Grasses of the Mid-Atlantic is an indispensable reference for naturalists and conservationists, botanists, land management professionals, and students and scholars of mid-Atlantic flora.