Reviews of Illinois Wildflowers

As a native of the west whose college field botany classes were in chaparral and coastal sage, much of Midwestern vegetation is still unknown to me, even after 25 years. When I buy a field guide I use it to identify plants I’m curious about. Illinois Wildflowers does the job very well. It’s strengths to be the excellent photos, descriptions, and ethnobotanical tidbits, as well as the broad coverage which includes native and non-native plants. For my purposes I the book would be much less useful if half of what I looked up was not there.

I really hate to do this because the photography was superb and I would have rated this publication an A+ based on the photos alone but... I bought this book after having read all the rave reviews believing it was going to be a field guide to wildflowers that were native/indigenous to Illinois. The title is rather misleading in that the book includes plants that are native as well as many that are introduced/non-native that have naturalized. Big differences between the two. Overall, the photos of plants that have been formally identified as noxious weeds in this state that are illegal to sell or plant were exceptional as were the photos of native wildflowers... if one could easily separate out which plants were which. My single greatest disappointment lies with many of the descriptions of plants given so many people share plants and seed out there.