Botany Field Guides for Colorado

[tellittothevoid]

I live in the PNW and have gotten into identifying/photographing/studying the plants here. I'll be taking a trip to CO in August and I'm excited to explore a whole new eco-region. I'm looking for recommendations for plant field guides for Colorado. I've been looking around a bit online but it's hard when you can't look inside the books.

For this particular trip I will mostly be at higher elevations in the Sawatch and Front Ranges, but I do foresee spending time in other areas of the state in the coming years.

I don't specifically need something portable for field use, as I don't generally take books into the field. Generally I will study up beforehand to try to familiarize myself with the general cast of characters, then in the field take detailed photographs, and when I get home use the guides again to ID anything I didn't already recognize. I'm ideally looking for comprehensive coverage of wildflowers, shrubs, trees, etc even if that means multiple specific books. I have somewhat of an understanding of the patterns of some plant families and genuses that I see in the PNW, but I'm not confident that I will be able to translate that to new species in a new region, so a 1000-page flora with all text and few diagrams might be a bit beyond my level. But something with keys in addition to images and descriptions would be nice.

Basically, I'm looking for recommendations for the go-to resources for the region for someone with a little more than a casual interest, but not quite an expert.

[Squirrellysquirrel]

I lean towards these books. An aside: I have a medical background and these are both great for identifying, understanding cultural history, and providing lists of active biochemical constituents and potential medicinal uses. Definitely geeky, but thorough and useful:

https://www.amazon.com/Medicinal-Plants ... 0890134545

More specifically for desert/canyons:

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/medicinal ... iq=4726946

For more of an edible idea:

https://mountain-press.com/products/edible-medicinal

[Dave B]

I mean, unless you want to ID grasses to species, a key really isn't necessary in CO. Most of the forbs, shrubs, and trees are pretty easy to ID off of a few key characteristics.

The field guides mentioned in the post above are a great place to start.

[jaymz]

This is the one I have that's pretty good:
Wildflowers of Colorado https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591931614/re ... aFbQ04CSPH
My wife and I had a nice time with it on Grand Mesa a few years ago. It surprised us how many poisonous flowers there are just hanging around!
There are also similar versions for trees, birds, and other lifeforms of interest.

[Fireweed]

Your travel plans sound fantastic. Hope you'll have a wonderful trip.

I asked a few Colorado naturalists on #Nature Twitter for their recommendations. Here are their answers:

From @edge_nature:

Trees and Shrubs of Colorado by Carter, Colorado Flora by William Weber.
...and no library would be complete with out the Sierra Club Naturalists Guide to the Southern Rockies by Audrey Benedict. A great primer on all ecosystems.

From @FRWildflowers:

Here’s some books to get you started 1: Rocky Mountain Wildflowers Field Guide expanded edition with over 270 wildflowers, Linda S. Nagy. 2: Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountain Region, Denver Botanic Gardens, Timber Press Field Guide 3: Rocky Mountain Wildflowers, Marlene Bornean.
Note: FLORA OF COLORADO by Jennifer Ackerfield is the most current flora for the state & has all the keys you mentioned. The photos in it aren’t as numerous or good as the three books I mentioned earlier. Those 3 books all have good pictures & are good starting pt. but lack keys.



I'll edit this post if I get more suggestions.

[tellittothevoid]

Thanks so much for the recommendations everyone!

I've decided to go with:

Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West
Trees and Shrubs of Colorado
Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountain Region (Timber Press)
Sierra Club Naturalists Guide to the Southern Rockies

I definitely had my eye on Ackerfield's Flora of Colorado, but I'm going to hold off for now. Worth noting that I have the first volume of the Flora of Oregon (vols 2 & 3 still forthcoming) also published by Botanical Research Institute of Texas Press and I can't speak highly enough of the content and layout/design.

For anyone interested in botany or any branches of biology really, I do want to mention the excellent online resource iNaturalist.org. It is a place where you can upload geotagged photos of your observations of plants/fungi/animals/insects/birds/anything living. You ID the observation as precisely as you can (even if only at a higher level like Kingdom/Phylum/Order), and others have a chance to confirm or correct or refine your IDs. You can browse maps to see what has been observed in any part of the world, or see where in the world any particular taxon has been observed. You can browse the photos of any taxon to help you make IDs of your own observations. There is a cool "citizen science" aspect as well; when your species-level IDs are confirmed by others, they become "research grade" and the data can be used by experts for biodiversity research. There is an app as well, but it's kind of crappy right now. The web version is excellent. I will be posting observations from my trip there, same username as this forum. iNaturalist is great and has helped me progress in my botanical journey very quickly, but I also really like having books to get other perspectives and for use when I'm not near a computer. I think having both modes complementing each other is the way to go.

I'll try to circle back here after my trip with a link for my observations as well as my thoughts on the books above after having put them to use.