For Students and Teachers
As you can see by going to my This site is for ... and Background Notes pages, I built this website in frustration with the lack of books or other reference materials that would let me quickly identify the names and other details about the many beautiful wildflowers I was seeing in the wild areas of San Diego County.
The recently published 2nd edition of Jim Lighter's book San Diego County Native Plants provides a great resource for you to carry into "the field" as a guidebook. But if you don't yet have a clue about the botanic Family (and often the botanic Genus) to which the plant you find belongs, then you may have to spend a very long time flipping through the 1000+ Species shown in Jim's book to find a match. And Jim's book is by far the best available for those of us who live in San Diego, and who care about preserving the biodiversity and beauty of our back country.
I built this website in hopes of remedying this problem for amateur and aspiring botanists like you and me ... at least partially. It's roughly 90% finished right now, and I'm working to make it more complete as the new wildflower season is starting (hopefully with at least SOME rain!!). Even without significant rain in early 2006, there are interesting shrubs and perennial plants blooming right now, so you should at least take a look.
The ever increasing destruction of the wild native habitats for plants and animals, to make space for people, is leading to the rapid extinction of many species that are not yet well understood ... even many not yet discovered!! In fact the SDNHM Plant Atlas Project has found specimens of well over 100 species of plants not previously known to grow in or near San Diego County, and they have much more work ahead. But ultimately practically all living species (including us humans) are inter-dependent on each other for their survival. For long term survival of the human race, we all would do well to learn more about the environment around us. Hopefully this website will make a small contribution to that learning.
Watch This Space for Study Materials to be Added in Stages
To save time, and a lot of frustration, in using almost any reference book containing wildflower pictures, or detailed descriptions, you really need to be able to recognize the plant's Family at a glance!! The main branches of my visual Key to Identify Plant Families help a little by allowing you to compare small photos of (somewhat similar) flowers from different Families side-by-side. But a glance at the matrix photo index pages for several of the larger Families will show both similarities and substantial variations of flower appearance right within one Family.
So I've built a simple online program to help reinforce our memory through practice to aid in Family recognition. There are two versions:
-- Ken Bowles
This page last modified on 15 February, 2006