This well-known classic of nature lore has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to the wonder and beauty of the wild flowers of most of the United States and Canada. Written with grace and charm, it is not only the handiest field guide to wild flowers, it is also a most pleasant and delightful book, packed full of interesting lore about plants and flowers.

To enable the reader to identify any given flower as easily as possible, Mrs. Dana has first classified plants by the color of their typical flowers: white, red, green, blue, yellow, pink, etc. She has then arranged the flowers within each color group according to their time of blossoming. As a result, if you should come upon a blue flower in June, you can turn instantly to the blue flowers, early section, and see a clear illustration of the plant you want to find—even if you have never had any botanical training at all. This combination of color and time classification makes this the easiest wild flower guide to use.

Mrs. Dana’s coverage of the wild flowers of the Eastern and Central United States and Canada is very thorough, all in all more than 1,000 important flowering, berry-bearing and foliage plants. More than 170 full-page plates illustrate the most important and most typical plants (showing foliage, flower, growth habit, roots, fruit, and whatever else is needed), so that you can identify your find at a glance. These illustrations by Marion Satterlee are famous as being both the most realistic and most interesting of modern floral drawings. Many readers have colored them as they have found individual flowers, thus keeping a permanent record of their field trips.

A full text provides you with complete botanical information about each important plant, information about the history, uses, folklore, habitat and other material for each plant, while introductory chapters explain principles of botanical classification and description for those interested.

From the back of the 1963 Dover reprint