Plant Identification

I am looking for a publication/CD ROM which will help me to identify plants.

I know there are many books which list plants in alphabetical order but if you are trying to identify a plant which name begins with a z it can take forever.

Is there anything which will help narrow the search by leaf/flower shape/colour flowering season etc.

I have seen a book which does this for wild flowers is there anything similar for cultivated plants.

 

try the RHS encyclopaedia of plants and flowers - you can get it cheap if you join a book club, or uses Amazon used books. But first try the RHS website - plantselector - that costs nowt!

 

I have just looked at the RHS A-Z encyclopaedia, and it does have a section that describes the leaf and flower shapes, but I could not see it going the extra step of listing plants with a known leaf or flower shape.

In the back of the "Readers Digest New Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants and Flowers" (about �£20), there is a plant identifier section, that lists plants by flower colour and shape, which may fit the bill. I like this book and use it more often than any other. Whilst the RHS Encyclopaedia is obviously bigger and better, it is in two volumes and is so heavy as to be rather awkward.

 

There is a book called A Herbaceous Garden Flora by F.K Makins published in 1957 which has keys for identifying as the title suggests. It does not cover trees and shrubs, though the book mentions another volume. I have not got that one though. You need some botanical knowledge to use it though. I find it fascinating myself.

 

That sounds like a useful book, PeterS - very handy!
The RHS encyc doesn't do the leaf shape thing, as you say - but it does have separate sections for different seasons of interest under each typoe of plannt, e.g small trees with white blossom in spring, are all in one bit, whereas tall trees with white blossom in summer will be in another bit. So it's handy if you're planning- not so useful in idents, tho.

 

Is there some confusion here? there are two similarly named RHS books, one is

Encyclopaedia of Plants and Flowers
[Or older edition
Gardeners Encyclopaedia of Plants and Flowers]
This is the one you want- plants are listed in groups according to type and colour, eg 'small pink shrub' which helps a lot with ID
.
The other one is
A-Z Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants

Which is in alphabetical order, and latin names, so you have to know a bit about what you're looking for, or it could take all night!

 

Hi, Liz - thanks for the clarification! Yes, I was thinking of the first one.