Here’s a running list of resources used for entries:
- Wikipedia – Hear me out here – I’d never advocate using this as a primary resource, but if you have a reasonably good idea of what you’re looking for (a species name is ideal here), Wikipedia is a great gateway to primary resources.
- Go Botany – The Native Plant Trust’s (formerly the New England Wildflower Society) database of New England Plants. Has natives and introduced species. and a key online you can use to help figure out what plant you’re looking at. I use this a lot when I’m stuck on something, and it’s great for trees and shrubs, since those are often skipped in general wildflower information.
- Inaturalist – This is my new go to for anything tough. It’s crowd sourced, so you have to take things with a grain of salt, but it can really help get you down the right path. I’ve also been using it to find new locations to find specific plants I’m interested in seeing, but haven’t found on my own ye
- Niering, W. A. and Olmstead, N. C. (1983). The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers: Eastern Region. New York: Alfred A. Knopf – I’ll admit this book has a somewhat special place in my heart. I attended Connecticut College, and I was privileged to take one of Professor Niering’s Connecticut Plants courses – I believe it was the last time he taught that particular class before he passed away. Absolutely an amazing man, with an amazing knowledge of plants.
- Kaczmarek, Frank. (2009). New England Wildflowers: A Guide to Common Plants. Guildford, CT: Falcon Guides – This book has supplanted the above as my first go to. It’s arranged by color, and the index goes by both common and scientific names. It’s fairly comprehensive too, so I can a fair amount with just a little perusing.
- Elliman, Ted & New England Wild Flower Society. (2016) Wildflowers of New England. Portland, OR: Timber Press, Inc. – This is my newest purchase (back in 2017), and has quickly become my favorite. It’s arranged by color and petal type, so other than the white flower (so many white flowers!), it’s fairly quick to look through. I’m now starting here first. I only wish it covered trees and larger shrubs.
- Clemants, Steven and Carol Gracie. Wildflowers in the Field and Forest – A Field Guide to the Northeastern United States. (2006) I go to this one if I can’t find it in Elliman’s book. It’s still got photos, but they’re harder to look through than the book above. But this book does have a ton more in it, so I’ve found things when I struck out with Elliman.
- Arsenault, Matt, Glen M. Mittelhauser, Don Cameron, Alison C. Dibble, Arthur Haines, Sally C. Rooney and Jill E. Webber. Sedges of Maine – A Field Guide to Cyperaceae. (2013)
- Mittelhauser, Glen M., Matt Arsenault, Don Cameron and Eric Doucette. Grasses and Rushes of Maine. (2019)
The two books above are put out by the University of Maine Press, and are amazing. Grasses, rushes and sedges are so hard to tell apart, and these book have helped me immensely since I found them.