Ferns Books

Peterson Field Guide to Ferns, Second Edition: Northeastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides (R))

Boughton Cobb, Cheryl Lowe, Elizabeth Farnsworth

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A superlative field guide with gardening information too 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

Would a field guide like this make a good holiday gift for a naturalist or gardener? Absolutely-if I didn't own it already it would be my number one choice. This is the best researched field guide I've ever seen. It is very very satisfying and is going to become a must-have for anyone who hikes the northeast or would like to garden with ferns, and for all botany students of the region. A book like this is more than just a guide-it trains the eye to open up to an entire world of subtle differences in nature. There is a kind of poetry in this guide usually not seen in this type of writing-BRILLIANT! Get one soon to catch the ferns in fall color-or do a little armchair gardening over the winter.

Editorial Review:

Since 1956, when the late Boughton Cobb wrote his field guide to ferns, this book, unchanged in all the years since, has become the classic on the subject. Now the New England Wild Flower Society (NEWFS) has completely updated the text and added 100 color photographs. The incredibly beautiful full-page line drawings by the late Laura Louise Foster have been reproduced from the original art. New subjects include a section on habitats and conservation, a glossary of botanical terms, and a chapter on gardening with ferns.

The New England Wild Flower Society is the nation's oldest organization devoted to the conservation of wild plants. It recently received a number of grants to celebrate its "Year of the Fern." NEWFS books published by Houghton Mifflin are Wildflowers and Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines, both by William Cullina.

Oaxaca Journal (National Geographic Directions)

Oliver Sacks

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Mispickel! Orpiment! Realgar! 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Dr. Sacks accompanied a group of botanical friends on a trip to see, catalogue, draw, and take delight in the unparalleled variety of ferns in Oaxaca, Mexico. His resulting journal is a meditation on Zapotec culture, amateur naturalists, edible insects, psychedelics, and above all ferns: seemingly so fragile yet having survived, with little change, for over 300 million years.

According to the author, his "sense of a prehistoric world, of immense spans of time, was first stimulated by ferns and fossil ferns."

For someone like myself who loves both ferns and the writings of Dr. Sacks, this journal is a treasure. It was composed under the blue sky of Oaxaca and filled with an emotion that Dr. Sacks admits is usually foreign to him: joy.

The author is fond of reading natural history journals and he has created a multi-faceted gem of his own, out of observations on lost civilizations, mescal, cochineal insects, plants as rare as horsetails a hundred feet high, and others as common as the bracken fern.

Half of our property in Michigan is covered with bracken ferns and I was always curious as to why insects didn't seem to bother them. According to this author, bracken is regarded as the 'Lucrezia Borgia' of the fern world: "the young fronds release hydrogen cyanide as soon as the insect's mandible tears into them, and if this does not kill or deter the bug, a much crueler poison lies in store. Brackens, more than any other plants, are loaded with hormones called ecdysones, and when these are ingested by insects, they cause uncontrollable molting."

The Romans used bracken on their stable floors because it arrested or perverted the development of fly larvae, although Dr. Sacks doesn't specify how the ancients kept the horses from eating their bedding. Bracken also poisons mammals, and humans who eat too many fiddle-heads over a long period of time are apt to develop stomach cancer.

It is tempting to open up "Oaxaca Journal" and reread an essay equally as vivid as the riff on the 'Lucrezia Borgia of ferns.' There are so many choices. By writing a journal for the National Geographic 'Literary Travel Series,' Dr. Sacks has opened himself up to every conceivable subject under the blazing Mexican sun.

There is indeed joy in this book.

Editorial Review:

The best-selling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks is well know as an explorer of the human mind—a neurologist with a gift for complex, insightful portrayals of people and their conditions. However, he is also a card-carrying member of the American Fern Society, and since childhood has been fascinated by these primitive plants and their ability to survive and adapt in many climates.

Oaxaca Journal is Sacks's spellbinding account of his trip with a group of fellow fern enthusiasts to the beautiful, history-steeped province of Oaxaca, Mexico. Bringing together Sacks's passion for natural history and the richness of human culture with his sharp eye for detail, Oaxaca Journal is a captivating evocation of a place, its plants, its people, and its myriad wonders.

Garden Ferns (Plantfinder's Guides Series)

Martin Rickard

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

the book is usefull 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 20 people found this review helpful.

I am a gardener (for research) in China,these days I thought of using ferns on landscafe,I have know few about how to grow the ferns before.By a chance,I read the book at a professor's home,'Oh,it is very usefull for me!',I thought at the same time.But...but I dont know how to get the book. I think the book is very usefull for all the people who like the ferns,or the people who want to grow the ferns.

more than A-Z 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

ferns are some of my favorite plants. This is a great book and I have had it a while I use it every time I teach a class on ferns. I really like the comarison shots of the different selection. THose really help to Identify labeless plants. I would have like some of the info in a bullit points at the beging or end of each enrty. for height hardiness and the like the stuff that every entry should have this would have made the book easier to use. BUt that doesn't mean I wouldn't get it I love this book. It is a must have.

Editorial Review:

The Plantfinder's Guide to Garden Ferns shows just how easily ferns can be grown in almost every garden. Martin Rickard's infectious enthusiasm shines through in his lucid text and will persuade every gardener that ferns are what their garden needs most.

The Plant-Book: A Portable Dictionary of the Vascular Plants

D. J. Mabberley

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A review is superfluous 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

This book does not need a review. Anybody who is involved in plants, other than the garden kind, knows full well that this is an essential reference. Quite up to date too, which is pretty amazing in view of the pace that science sets. There is an enormous mass of data in here, printed on very thin paper, making for a very handy book that will fit a spot near where you need it, which is likely to be often.

Editorial Review:

The Plant-Book is widely accepted as an essential reference text for anyone growing or writing about plants. In over 20,000 entries this comprehensive dictionary provides information on every family and genus of seed-bearing plant (including gymnosperms) plus ferns and other pteridophytes, combining taxonomic details with invaluable information on English names and uses. In this new edition each entry has been updated to take into consideration the most recent literature and over 2,500 new entries have been added, ensuring that The Plant-Book continues to rank among the most practical and authoritative botanical texts available.

A Dictionary of the Flowering Plants and Ferns

J. C. Willis

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Editorial Review:

Willis's Dictionary is a famous publication in the world of botany and horticulture. It is a comprehensive and indispensable reference to the generic and family names of flowering plants and ferns. The entries attempt to cover all published generic names from 1753 onwards and published family names from 1789, together with a number of supra- and infra-familial taxa where these have not been based on family or generic names. The generic names include many variant spellings and inter-generic hybrids. Brief characters of subfamilies are usually given. The treatment of the families and higher taxa of the Pteridophyta is based on the classification scheme proposed by Pichi-Sermolli. The synopses of the Bentham & Hooker and Engler & Prand systems are retained. This eighth edition is now published in paperback in order to make it available to a wider readership, not only of professional botanists, but also students and serious amateurs.

Developmental Biology of Fern Gametophytes (Developmental and Cell Biology Series)

V. Raghavan

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Editorial Review:

This volume outlines all of the phases of the gametophytic generation in ferns such as spore germination and sex organ initiation, from how the gametophyte grows to how it eventually initiates the sporophytic generation. The book discusses these stages in morphological, physiological, cytological and biochemical terms, and, by combining all these perspectives, presents a new view of this interesting developmental process that sheds light on general plant development. Developmental biologists will find this book a useful resource.

The Ferns of Florida: A Reference and Field Guide (Reference and Field Guides) (Reference and Field Guides)

Gil Nelson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Ferns of Florida 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book is for anyone who has an interest in ferns and wishes to be able to distinguish one from the other. Great color pictures so that you can compare the subtle differences and make these ferns you own. Ferns are wonderful plants that require little care and are almost impossible to kill even with kindness. Enjoy.

Showcases some 163 kinds of ferns 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Enhanced with more than two hundred color photographs, Gil Nelson's The Ferns Of Florida: A Reference And Field Guide showcases some 163 kinds of ferns ranging from norther species whose southern range extends into the uplands of Florida's norther tier, to tropical ferns spilling over Florida's southern tip. The text is thoroughly "reader friendly" with detailed descriptions and helpful identification tips, along with an invaluable selection of field observation based botanical keys for identifying plants in their wild ecosystems. There are extensive notes on each species growth form, as well as the botanical names, unique characteristics, garden use, and history. An essential and core title for any Floridian based gardener, as well as the professional and academic horticulturalist or botanist, The Ferns Of Florida also includes a glossary, a section on the fern life cycle and structure, a history of fern study in Florida, a discussion of some of the state's best natural ferneries, and an extensive bibliography for further study.

Editorial Review:

The first field guide in 25 years to treat Florida's amazing variety of ferns. Color plates feature more than 200 images, some of which include rare species never before illustrated in color. Includes notes on each species' growth form and habit, as well as general remarks about its botanical and common names, unique characteristics, garden use, and history in Florida.

Ferns of Hawai'i

Kathy Valier

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Pteridophyte Flora of Oaxaca, Mexico (Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden Vol. 46)

John T. Mickel, Joseph M. Beitel

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Ferns of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden)

George R. Proctor

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