I got this book for an aquatic plants class. To be honest I haven't even opened it really for the class. But the pictures are great! and the descriptions do help if you have not used plant terminology before. I recomend this book if you have never worked with plants. Otherwise you probley could go without the book.

This is the kind of book every beginning botanist ought to have. Directing an herbal medicine school, I teach people how to use a technical key, in our case "Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas." Having this book at hand means that my students don't have to memorize the 30 different ways that a leaf can be hairy -- pubescent, tomentose, scurfy, etc.

For those of us who aren't botany majors (and maybe some who are), having this book at your side while keying out a plant is indispensable. Can't think of another book like it.

Botany books use too many big words and not enough illustrations. This book clarifies the meanings of those big words with attractive drawings.

If you need to identify any plants using a taxonomic key or any other botanical guide, this book helps enormously to clarify the technical terms. It's like learning another language and this book is your dictionary.

This was required reading for my California Ecosystems class and its many illustrations and definitions were extremely useful when we used a dichotemous key in class.