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Name That Plant!

Keys and tools for plant identification

jekeesl (south-central Arkansas)

9 years ago

Some of you may need a bit of winter reading. This is a list of the online, or downloadable (PDF) keys that I use for plant identification. I'm sure there are others, but these cover most US species. Most of these are "works in progress", and do not cover all genera.

Flora of North America (FNA) - You can drill down through the volumes (complex), or can just type the name of the desired genera in the search box (simplest method). That will either take you to an online, dichotomous key for the genera, or will list other sources when the FNA data is incomplete. Once you're at the genus level, clicking on the species takes you to a page with full plant descriptions. http://www.efloras.org/flora_page.aspx?flora_id=1

Flora of the Southern and Mid-Atlantic States (Weakley's keys) - This page provides a free download of the November 2012 version in PDF format, which is 54 MB and more than 1000 pages long. Although it does not provide full descriptions, it does have information on typical habitat, bloom times, etc. http://www.herbarium.unc.edu/flora.htm

Grass Manual on the Web - This is an excellent online resource for all US grasses from the University of Utah. http://herbarium.usu.edu/webmanual/

Flora of Missouri - This online resource covers plants in, and around Missouri. It also provides full descriptions of the species, if the genus has been keyed out. When you enter a genus in the search box and enter it, then click on the appropriate result (usually the one with an exclamation point behind it) to get to the genus key. http://www.tropicos.org/NameSearch.aspx?projectid=23

Keys to the Vascular Plants of East Texas - Monocots - When you paste this link into your browser and hit "enter", it should automatically start a 50+ MB download in PDF format. I use this as a backup for the Grass Manual on the Web. http://www.brit.org/sites/default/files/public/BRIT%20Press/IFNCT_Docs/SBM_26-pp309-1151.pdf

Botanical Research Institute of (north central) Texas - This link takes you to a page where you can download keys for Texas monocots, dicots, ferns, etc. in PDF format. Once you have the documents saved to your computer, they are fully searchable (using the Ctrl + F keys on your keyboard). http://www.brit.org/brit-press/nctexasflora/online

Flora of China - This is an online, searchable, sister site to the Flora of North America site. It is sometimes very useful for plants that are non-native. http://www.efloras.org/flora_page.aspx?flora_id=2

The Biota of North America (BONAP) Program - This site lets you pull up online genera maps that show county-level distributions for each species. It is very useful when trying to determine which plants can be found in your area. http://bonap.net/NAPA/Genus/Traditional/County

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Comments (3)

missingtheobvious
9 years ago
At the risk of bumping this down, thank you, jekeesl!

Hm ... maybe it should be an FAQ?
0
gyr_falcon
9 years ago
Ah, the memories of keying. :) Horticulture major; we used Bailey's Manual of Cultivated Plants---the book. (In fact, I still own my copy!) The professor liked to challenge me with plants uncommon to the gardens here and completely unfamiliar to me--like trollius. As someone who liked puzzles, it was great fun to discover the identity of a plant using keys. As a SoCal resident, I don't need winter reading, though. We are busy gardening! It was shorts weather today at 79 degrees F. There is an old copy of Baileys online too, in case the rest of you have a long, long winter.

Here is a link that might be useful: 1924 Manual of Cultivated Plants
0
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fatamorgana2121
9 years ago
My most often used key is Newcomb's Guide to Wildflowers. I linked in the Amazon page to it below.

FataMorgana

Here is a link that might be useful: amazon link
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