Think about the last time you saw a field bedecked with wildflowers. Wasn’t it a sublimely beautiful sight? I know that each time I see one, whenever possible I stop and simply soak in the delightfully random arrangements of color. And yet how many of us – unless of course we’re skilled botanists – can easily identify the various plants that make such sights possible?
It’s for this reason that carrying a field guide to the local flora is always a good idea when venturing afield. And thanks to the efforts of Linda G. Chafin, and Hugh and Carol Nourse, those going afield in the U.S. state of Georgia have a brand new one to add to their field bag: Field Guide to the Wildflowers of Georgia and Surrounding States from the University of Georgia Press.
The most recent addition to the decidedly praise-worthy Wormsloe Foundation Nature Book series, this new field guide covers 770 species of wildflowers found in Georgia as well as offers additional information on 530 more “similar to” species. An lest it be thought that such a guide is only applicable to Georgia proper, the publisher asserts that 90% or more of the species in the guide occur in Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and 80% or more occur in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia, making it quite a handy field guide indeed throughout a most of the American southeast.
