Tips for Wildflower Identification
Tips for Wildflower Identification
EastTennesseeWildflowers.com
If you are "florally challenged" and don't know a daisy from a rose or a dandelion from a violet, you need to get a good wildflower identification book! Some are better for beginners, other books are good for those who are more comfortable with flower families. Books with photographs are not quite as intimidating for beginners, but they are not as accurate as those with line drawings. Books that list flowers by color are user-friendly, books that arrange flowers by families are not quite so easy to use. If you get hooked on wildflowers you'll find you need local books from places you visit. I have over 30 books from many areas of the U.S. and Europe, some are written in German and Norwegian.
Unless you are fluent in words like strigillose, chasmogamous, papilionaceous, pulvinous, or tomentose, do not buy a "professional grade" plant identification book! You know you are over your head when you have to look up the meanings of the words in the glossary in the other listings of the glossary!
Characteristics to aid in identification
When looking at a plant keep these characteristics in mind:
Habitat: Woodlands, fields, aquatic, etc.
Color of flowers
Shape and size of flowers
Number of petals (or sepals in some cases)
Number of stamens and pistils on flowers
Arrangement of flowers on the stem: umbel, spike, raceme, etc.
Leaf size and shape: simple leaf, compound leaf with pinnate or palmate leaflets
Leaf margins (edges): smooth, pointed, lobed
Leaf arrangement on plant: basal, opposite, alternate, whorled
Stem: Square, round, winged
Smell of flowers or crushed leaves
Size of plant
Soil type: Sandy, humus, clay
There are 20 different leaf shapes, 9 leaf margin types, etc., so I will not even attempt to discribe all of them! A good flower book will cover these.
Take along a sketch book to draw or write down notes on the plants' characteristics; you don't have to be a great artist! The sketchings may help you later identify a flower.
Classification for the Common Dandelion - Taraxacum officinale
Kingdom Plantae
Phylum Anthophyta
Class Magnoliopsida
Order Asterales
Family Asteraceae
Genus Taraxacum
Species officinale
