Somerset Wild Flowers: A guide to their identification

A new inexpensive photo-guide to wild flowers in Somerset, that assumes very little in the way of knowledge about plants and avoids technical terminology.

A short introduction provides a brief illustrated aid to the terms used. English and Latin names are shown and generally two pictures of each plant with a brief description. Entries are arranged by family, with explanatory notes.
Essentially, the author expects the reader to have an approximate idea of which family an unidentified plant belong to and to then use a brief list of family characteristics to confirm the family e.g Speedwell. The photographs and notes can then be used as a key to narrow down the search, if required, to a specific species.
There are limitations to the approach advocated, particularly when the family name is not known and a key based on colour/flower parts or such like would have been a useful addition. A list of family names and page numbers would have been helpful too, although there is an index of Latin and English names.
In some instances therefore, readers will avail themselves of the book’s chief virtue – the extensive set of photographs – and resort to the author’s suggestion of skipping through the book to compare photographs of look-alike plants. A few of the photos are a little out of focus, but as with the majority, they illustrate the key features.