One gardener’s weed might very well be a naturalist’s wild flower or a herbalist’s medicinal plant. So much depends on both your world view and the level of exasperation you’ve reached while battling shot weed, dandelions or nettles.
In keeping with a recent column where I advocated knowing your enemies in order to vanquish them, there are loads of books available to help you get a better grip on seeing when something is a weed, a native flower or a medicinal herb – or all three at the same time.
An old standby for weed identification is “Weeds of the West,” published in cooperation with the Western Society of Weed Science, the Western United States Land Grant Universities Cooperative Extension Services and the University of Wyoming.
Yes, Virginia, there really is a Western Society of Weed Science.
“Weeds of the West” is arranged by plant families, but there isn’t much method to its madness after that. If you recognize the plant family the weed belongs to, you can get close; and it’s a great book for browsing, but it’s not the best for ID’ing an unknown plant.
A better guide, in my opinion, is “Weeds of the Northern U.S and Canada,” published by Lone Pine Press and the University of Alberta. This book includes information on flower structure and leaf arrangement to help in keying out mystery plants. Along with photos of mature plants, it also provides photos of seedlings, something very helpful for those of us who want to separate the good guys from the bad as soon as the carrots and cilantro emerge from the ground.
Another plus is that it includes a section toward the front of the book where you can quickly key out plants by their flower color and leaf arrangement, and seedlings by the shape of their cotyledons.
To get a better grip on both the native and introduced species you’re going to find in your garden and beyond, there’s nothing to compare to “Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast” by Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon. You’ll find trees, shrubs, flowers, good guys, bad guys and some extremely cool fungi. Don’t go into the woods without it.
If wildflowers are your thing, the Timber Press field guide “Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest” by Mark Turner and Phyllis Gustafson is wondeful. This is truly a flower centric book. It’s divided by flower color and the number of petals, and whether those petals are arranged symmetrically or irregularly.
Interested in medicinal plants? Try “Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West” by Michael Moore. There are innumerable medicinal plant books – I know, I have most of them – but this is a good place to start.
Need help recognizing plant families and finding the right words to use when keying them out in a field guide? “Botany in a Day” by Thomas J. Elpel teaches how to recognize the plant families of North America by their patterns in a user friendly way.
Finally, I couldn’t survive without “Plant Identification Terminology” by James G. Harris and Melinda Woolf Harris. It includes eight pages concerning descriptive terminology for plant surfaces alone.
Not impressed? Personally, I’m gearing up for the botany edition of “Jeopardy!”
“I’ll take “alveolate” for $200, Alex.”
