Weeds of the Northeast FROM THE PUBLISHER
Here, at last, is a lavishly illustrated manual for ready identification of 299 common and economically important weeds in the region south to Virginia, north to Maine and southern Canada, and west to Wisconsin. Based on vegetative rather than floral characteristics, this practical guide gives anyone who works with plants the ability to identify weeds before they flower.A dichotomous key to all the species described in the book is designed to narrow the choices to a few possible species. Identification can then be confirmed by reading the descriptions of the species and comparing a specimen with the drawings and photographs. A fold-out grass identification table provides diagnostic information for weedy grasses in an easy-to-use tabular key. Specimens with unusual vegetative characteristics, such as thorns, square stems, whorled leaves, or milky sap, can be rapidly identified using the shortcut identification table.
The first comprehensive weed identification manual available for the Northeast, this book will facilitate appropriate weed management strategy in any horticultural or agronomic cropping system and will also serve home gardeners and landscape managers, as well as pest management specialists and allergists.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Brown (founder of the North American Native Orchid Journal) provides a guide to 71 orchid species and varieties found growing wild in New England, New York, and adjacent areas of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, with an emphasis on distribution and tips for locating flowering colonies. He describes several orchid "hotspots"e.g., The Northeast Kingdom (Vermont) and the Route 128 arc around Bostonincluding such unusual habitats as bogs and sand/gravel excavations near roads, which support certain orchid species. This book would be a natural for libraries in the region, but librarians may wish to compare it with William Chapman's Orchids of the Northeast (Syracuse Univ., 1996). Weeds of the Northeast is a more specialized reference to 298 species of weeds in agriculture, nurseries, gardens, turf areas, landscapes, and roadways. Entries detail the appearance of seedling and mature plants, flowers and fruits, habitat, distribution, and similar species. Special features include identification keys based on characteristics such as thorns, milky sap, and type of leaf; a dichotomous key to all described species; a grass identification table; and comparison tables for easily confused species. This book would certainly be valuable for identifying weeds in the region defined as Maine south to Virginia and west to Ohio and Wisconsin, but it does not provide guidance for controlling or eliminating them. Recommended for comprehensive gardening collections or botanical/agricultural libraries.Beth Clewis Crim, Prince William P.L., Va.
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