Resources for Grand Canyon Flora
Books with Photographs or Illustrations of Grand Canyon Plants
- River and Desert Plants of the Grand Canyon, Kristin Huisinga, Lori Makarick and Kate Watters, 2006, Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula, Montana. This is by far the best book to consult if you are trying to identify a plant by its picture alone, since it contains only plants found in the Grand Canyon. It has excellent photographs, a thumbnail photo guide, and good descriptions of ~300 species arranged by family.
- A Field Guide to the Plants of Arizona, Anne Orth Epple, Photography by Lewis E. Epple, 1995, ~100 pages of color photographs plus 347 pages of text. 850 species pictured in over 900 color photographs. The pictures are organized by flower morphology and the descriptions are organized by family. This contains a number of species not found in the previous book. The pictures are smaller and show less of the plant, a necessary trade-off in order to show more species.
- A Field Guide to the Grand Canyon, Stephen R. Whitney, Second Edition, 1996, 269 pages (not all devoted to plants). The first edition had 47 plates of drawings of plant species, organized by flower color as well as leaf morphology.
- A Field Guide to the Special Status Plants of the Grand Canyon, Nancy J. Brian, Science Center, Grand Canyon National Park, 2000, available at Grand Canyon National Park: Plants in the form of three PDF files. This is a detailed guide to 63 of the special plants of the Grand Canyon, with descriptions and photographs.
- The Jepson Manual: Higher Plants of California, ed. J. C. Hickman, 1993, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. Roughly half of the Grand Canyon species are present in California and have detailed descriptions in this book. Most of the taxa also have botanical illustrations.
- Grand Canyon Wildflowers, Arthur M. Phillips III, 1979, Grand Canyon Natural History Association, Grand Canyon, AZ. This book gives descriptions, photographs, and locations for 140 species.
- Common Wildflowers of the Grand Canyon, John W. Stockert and Joanne W. Stockert, 1967, Wheelwright Press, Salt Lake City, UT. This book gives descriptions, photographs, and locations for 75 species.
Floras, Checklists and Keys for Grand Canyon Plants
- Grand Canyon National Park: Plants contains a link to the latest public Grand Canyon Plant List as an Excel file, containing just the taxon names.
- Annotated Checklist of Vascular Plants of Grand Canyon National Park (Monograph No. 7), Barbara G. Phillips, Arthur M. Phillips, III; and Marilyn Ann Schmidt Bernzott, Grand Canyon Natural History Association, 1987, 80 pages. This is a full flora, not just a checklist, documenting the elevation range and locations for each taxon. It does not include a key to or descriptions of the species.
There have been three updates published:
- (I haven't been able to find the first published additions.)
- Brian, Nancy; Wendy C. Hodgson, and Arthur M. Phillips, III "Additions to the Flora of the Grand Canyon Region-II" in Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science. Volume 32, Issue 2. 1999.
- Brian, Nancy "Additions to the Flora of the Grand Canyon Region-III" in Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science. Volume 33, Issue 2. 2001.
- Grand Canyon Wild Flowers, W. B. McDougall, 1964, Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin Number 43. This is the perfect complement to the previous reference, containing a key to all species and brief descriptions of each, but no locations. It also contains ~120 photographs. Although the species names are older, the plants themselves haven't changed. This is also a perfect size to carry along on a hike to identify plants in place.
- Grand Canyon National Park Plant Checklist For Hermits Rest to Grandview contains a preliminary checklist of 812 taxa found south of the Colorado River from Hermits Rest to Grandview, with elevations and bloom times mostly from Phillips et al 1987.
- Arizona Flora (Second Edition), Thomas H. Kearney, Robert H. Peebles et al, 1032 pages, with Supplement by John Thomas Howell, Elizabeth McClintock et al, 51 pages, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1960. This flora contains only keys, family descriptions and species locations, without any species descriptions. The second edition is a reprint of the first edition with a separate Supplement.
- Vascular Plants of Arizona Project (VPAP), which contains a list of the families treated so far in seven published journal issues. This is the latest Flora of Arizona, but is incomplete.
- The Jepson Manual: Higher Plants of California, ed. J. C. Hickman, 1993, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. Roughly half of the Grand Canyon species are present in California and have detailed descriptions in this book. Because the keys in this reference were designed only for taxa in the California flora, Grand Canyon specimens may key to an erroneous species, or they may not key out at all.
- Checklist of Selected Plants of the Grand Canyon Area, compiled by Therean E. and Karen L. Taylor, 1992, Grand Canyon Natural History Association, 1992, 16 pages, $1.50. This is a handy pocket checklist of the most common plants, with flower color, locations, flowering period, commonness and life cycle, to take with you on a hike. It contains no pictures.
- A Catalogue of the Arizona Flora, J. Harry Lehr, 1978, Desert Botanical Garden, 203 pages. (A checklist of names, with no keys or aids for plant identification, useful for name changes and additions to the flora of Arizona since 1960.)
Other Resources
- Southwest Environmental Information Network (SEINet) is a wonderful tool to search for herbarium records, by taxon or locality. Many taxa have photographs of live plants and of vouchers available. You can search their image library of over 2500 images of scanned herbarium sheets and photos.
- USDA Plants has a complete list of species occurring in the United States, including many synonyms (alternate names) for the scientific name, and gives the distribution by state for every species. Many species also have their distribution by Arizona county, and pictures.
- Southwest Colorado Wildflowers, Ferns, and Trees . This has excellent photographs and descriptions of over 600 wildflowers, shrubs, ferns, and trees of the area within a 150 mile radius of the Four Corners.
- Northern Arizona Flora by Lee Dittmann, has excellent photographs of 218 species, as well as a fairly complete checklist of Northern Arizona species organized by family with brief descriptions.
- Arizona Biomes with selected species in each biome
See also References for the Northern Arizona Flora by Lee Dittmann
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Copyright © 2003-2007 by Tom Chester.
Permission is freely granted to reproduce any or all of this page as long as credit is given to me at this source:
http://tchester.org/gc/plants/lists/arizona_pix_and_db.html
Comments and feedback: Tom Chester
Updated 21 September 2007.