In exploring and enjoying Georgia’s amazing diversity of wildflowers and other native flora, a good field guide is invaluable to help identify, understand and learn more about the plants.
Now, we have the first guidebook ever devoted exclusively to the state — “Field Guide to the Wildflowers of Georgia and Surrounding States.” Just published by the University of Georgia Press, it is written by Linda Chafin, a conservation botanist at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens.
(The reason the title includes “surrounding states,” she noted, is that “more than 90 per cent of the plants featured in the guide also occur in Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina.”)
The well-organized field guide is written and laid out in a manner that will appeal to professional botanists as well as budding naturalists — and to anyone curious about what they are seeing in Georgia’s woods, fields, wetlands and even along roadsides.
“I want this book to be useful to the average person who loves wildflowers and has an interest in nature and conservation,” Chafin said. “I hope it will encourage people to learn about and protect Georgia’s native plants and habitats.”
The book not only has detailed descriptions of 770 wildflower species that occur in Georgia — and brief details on 530 more — but also suggests the best places and time of year to see them in the state. It has more than 1,600 color photographs, most of which were taken by Chafin’s fellow Georgia Botanical Society members.
Chafin, a UGA-trained botanist, said the main reason she decided to do the book was that Georgia was the only state in the Southeast without its own wildflower guide. “This is kind of shocking, considering how species-diverse Georgia is (4,000 vascular plant species, native and non-native),” she said.
Some other reasons: “People are becoming more and more interested in using native plants in their gardens and to promote pollinators,” she said. “Also, as Georgia’s population grows, our wildflower habitats are disappearing.”
In the sky: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon is new Saturday night. Mercury is low in the east just before sunrise. Mars is in the south, Jupiter is low in the southwest and Saturn is high in the east around nightfall.
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