From the cover of Season of Promise by June Carver Roberts

In winter, when the weather is mild and you take a walk, you can challenge yourself by trying to identify the remnants of our autumn wildflowers and perhaps the basal rosettes of plants awaiting the warmth of spring to send forth stem and blossom again.

There are two outstanding books to help in this task and others useful but less comprehensive. The first is Season of Promise by June Carver Roberts (Ohio Univ. Press, 1993). There is no key to the plants but the book is divided into 6 sections by habitat, such as "plants of shores and wetlands", "plants of woodlands," etc. Within these sections the included plants are listed in order by scientific family as in Gray's Manual. Some 250 plants, mostly herbaceous but a few shrubs, ferns, lichens and fungi, are treated. This was the first book on the subject to include so much information about their winter aspect as well as lucid descriptions of the growing plants, scientific name derivations and interesting facts about uses, etc. The illustrations for each plant are beautifully done, mostly line drawings and a few lovely watercolor plates. This book is a joy to behold and to read.

From the cover of A Guide to Wildflowers in Winter, Herbaceous Plants of Northeastern North America by Carol Levine

A Guide to Wildflowers in Winter, Herbaceous Plants of Northeastern North America by Carol Levine (Yale Univ. Press, 1995) will rightly become a classic in the field. It is comprehensive, covering nearly 400 herbaceous plants in detail, with briefer notes on another 200. The 400 plants are illustrated with beautiful, accurate line drawings by Dick Rauh and each has descriptions of fruit, stems, leaves, habit, and habitat to help identify the plant. "The Illustrated Key" at the beginning is designed to lead you to your plant in question, through habitat, habit (e.g., vine, ground cover, upright), stem characters (thorns, hairs, or lack there of) and especially type of fruits still to be found. There is an illustrated glossary of terms and 19 photographic plates of basal rosettes which often remain well into the winter and appear early in the spring. The scientific names are based on The Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Canada, 2nd. ed. by Gleason and Cronquist. This is the field manual most widely used by botanists today.

Two earlier books on the subject which you may already have are The Winter Weed Finder by Dorcas S. Miller, part of the excellent Plant Finder series published by the Nature Study Guild. This is inexpensive and truly a pocket guide. Weeds in Winter by Lauren Brown was first published in 1976 (Norton) and instantly became a welcome companion to fall and winter walkers. There is an extensive key based on habit, stem and fruit characters especially, and an illustrated glossary. There are good line drawings and descriptions of each of the135 plants included.

As we move into spring, a fine book for identifying early signs of the season as well as the plants in the full flush of growth is Weeds of the Northeast by Richard H. Uva, et al, 1997. There are several tables of keys based on obvious features such as weeds with thorns or prickles, weeds with milky sap, with square stems, etc. There is also a lengthy vegetative key. The 4 or 5 excellent photos for each plant, and sometimes line drawings, show habit of growth, basal rosettes, seedlings, seeds, mature leaves, etc. The full page of text opposite the illustrations for each plant includes a general description as well as details about roots, stem, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds and a list of similar species. If you like to name whatever you see growing this book will be most helpful.


Text: ©Mary Walker
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