Wildflowers Of The Shenandoah Valley And Blue Ridge Mountains

Designed for those with no biological training, this volume is small enough to carry in the field. It uses a colour-coded system for the photographs, and contains 285 species of wildflowers from the floriferous nine-county section of Virginia.

Using full-color photography and expertly crafted prose, Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains turns a day hike or drive through our nation's most beautiful and rugged expanse of forested mountains into an object lesson in the stunning beauty of nature.

Wildflowers of Shenandoah National Park is an easy-to-use field guide to help you identify more than 230 of the park's most common species - from the iconic large-flowered trillium, with its trio of white to pink petals, to the showstopping blooms that adorn the mountain laurel shrubs that decorate trails in June. Information-packed and beautifully photographed, this field guide is an indispensable resource for identifying wildflowers in the park. Inside you'll find: • Vibrant full-color photos and a detailed park map • Detailed yet user-friendly descriptions of plants organized by color and bloom time, with natural history notes, ethnobotanical uses, and historical uses • 20 suggested wildflower hikes • A glossary of botanical terms and comprehensive wildflower index

This comprehensive guidebook provides a detailed description of every official National Park Service trail along the Blue Ridge Parkway. But that's just the beginning: veteran hiker Leonard M. Adkins includes information on every trail that touches the parkway, including the Appalachian Trail and other public pathways on national park, state park, national forest, municipal, and private lands, along with citations for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Far more than a guide to the trails, this book will help you plan your whole trip. It's the perfect companion for your next parkway adventure. Includes: - every public trail along the parkway - GPS coordinates and 72 maps - 255 total trails, including 12 new trails since the last edition - trail length and difficulty - points of interest - wheelchair accessibility - a short history of the parkway and region - campgrounds and lodges - public restroom locations - elevation change charts for cyclists - tunnel heights for RVs - wildflower bloom calendar - selected sightseeing information on nearby towns

Winding over the crests and through the valleys of the southern Appalachian highlands between Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks, the Blue Ridge Parkway offers the traveler a natural spectacle unsurpassed for complexity and grandeur. This book is a lively and compact on-the-spot guide to the region's features, geological history, and natural inhabitants--from its plants, insects, and fish to its reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals.

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

With a new cover, more extensive index, and list of organizations, the new edition of Wildflowers of the Appalachian Trail is the go-to resource for anyone interested in the wildflowers found along the 2,175-mile-long Appalachian National Scenic Trail. Stunning full-page color photos by Joe Cook and Monica Cook accompany the detailed descriptions by author Leonard Adkins that include: bloom season, leaves and stem descripotion, geographic range of growth, and location of the flower along the AT. Also included for many of the 94 flowers profiled in the book is the fascinating role the flower has played through history and its value in folkloric as well as modern medicine.