"best" route to learn identify plants and their uses?

[Lush]

Hi all,

To start learning identifying plants I bought a field guide. It lists all the plants in west Europe. It works following a system that narrows down your choices until you are left with the one and only true plant you are looking at. This guide is not about plant uses at all.

Learning to identify plants is one thing. Learning which plants are useful and what for is another.

What do you recon is the best way to learn both?
thanks,
Lush

 

[JonnyP]

Hi all,

To start learning identifying plants I bought a field guide. It lists all the plants in west Europe. It works following a system that narrows down your choices until you are left with the one and only true plant you are looking at. This guide is not about plant uses at all.

Learning to identify plants is one thing. Learning which plants are useful and what for is another.

What do you recon is the best way to learn both?
thanks,
Lush

I am not a fan of that method of id, there is a website that does that, and I do not get much in the way of results, try it for youself.. http://www.botanicalkeys.co.uk/flora/
I think it is best to learn the plants around your home area, go out and take a photo or a cutting, (if your allowed) and go home and learn it, one or two at a time, ask on here, or a wildlife forum, plant forum... To just learn what plants are useful, you really need to go out with someone who knows or go on a plant course, wild food course...

 

[British Red]

I find asking Jon works

Small camera, half a dozen field guides. Learn to recognise a few and then pick on one or two you don't know. Spend a bored few minutes looking at trees around you. For example there is a lovely row of limes outside Southampton Airport station and Tulip Trees outside B&Q offices

Red

 

[stuart f]

Hi Lush another way you could go is by learning plants by family patterns. I would recommend this method to all as by reading and learning from this book,
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Botany-Day-...471937?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173655755&sr=1-22 will make sense to all. Also check out here for more info on the system
http://www.hopspress.com/Books/Botany_in_a_Day.htm but please don't be put off by it being American based as it deals with plants that occur across the frost belt,that includes us in Blighty.

Also it is written for the layman no technical stuff to bog you down, just clear and straight forward. A great book!

 

[Ahjno]

I firmly believe in a step-by-step identification of plants, rather than using a book with a whole lot of pictures and you simply finding a match ("oooh-this-one-looks-the-one-in-my-book").

Therefor I use a Flora. It guides you step by step through an identification proces, using the plant characteristics.

This is the one I use:
http://www.selexyz.nl/pages/detail_v2/S1/10030001778529-2-10090000000010.aspx?showbreadcrumb=1

I bought this one, because I learnt how to use it in school ...

BUT: I recently came across another one - it looks good, though the 3 minutes time I had to flick through it, weren't enough to crack the method it uses for identification ... Lot of pictures AND a lot of text (bit similair to the Flora).
http://www.beslist.nl/boeken/d0000093601/Veldgids_Nederlandse_flora.html

When I made a positive ID I simply use Google (mostly using the Latin name) to find the plant's uses and write down everything I can find.

Another usefull site is Plants For A Future: www.pfaf.org

 

[xylaria]

I am not a fan of that method of id, there is a website that does that, and I do not get much in the way of results, try it for youself.. http://www.botanicalkeys.co.uk/flora/
I think it is best to learn the plants around your home area, go out and take a photo or a cutting, (if your allowed) and go home and learn it, one or two at a time, ask on here, or a wildlife forum, plant forum... To just learn what plants are useful, you really need to go out with someone who knows or go on a plant course, wild food course...

Thank you I thought it was just me being thick. I cant use that website either. I tend to avoid using information I need biological dictionary to understand.

I follow your advise about getting out and learning local plants one at the time. I am great believer in the more tactile you are with a subject the quicker it is learned.

 

[Lush]

I think I might hire Jon, take a lot of pictures and buy all the books I can, hahaha..

No seriously, the guide I bought is "Flora." Once you have learned to work with it you have the last word when it comes to identifying plants and sub species, I have been told. It’s a bit harder to use, especially when you start out, like me. But it's fine, it works for me. It's ALL the wild plants in Europe in one guide.

But Stuart..., the guide you recommend sounds very interesting as well! I think it might be a fantastic book to complement the other one. It's totally different of course and much more intuitive for sure. The guide I bought lacks pictures (although it works fine without, I am very visual.)

Jon, the idea to take pictures and an occasional cutting also appeals to me; that way it's so easy and relaxed to sort it out when at home (instead of carrying the guide all the time.) Starting with the plants around my home area is also a very good advice I would have never thought of!

Ahjno www.pfaf.org is a very useful website indeed! Thanks

Lush

 

[TheGreenMan]

Hello Rush,

I would follow Jon Pickett’s and British Red’s advice. Buy good quality Field Guides, and take small samples home for close study.

Within 25m of my London flat/apartment I have large specimens of trees growing, as far apart in origin as America and China.

It’s a wonderful and absorbing education.

Best regards,
Paul.

 

[spamel]

America and China aren't really that far apart though!

 

[TheGreenMan]

That's true, Spam! But as I live on the Greenwich Meridian, I always think of America being to my left, and China to my right (whilst I'm facing north, of course)

Cheers,
Paul.

 

[twisted firestarter]

Mors Kochanski at last years Bush Moot was advocating that you take samples of plants which you can't recognise and selotape them into an exercise book. that way you can study them better when you get home.

 

[Lush]

Mors Kochanski at last years Bush Moot was advocating that you take samples of plants which you can't recognise and selotape them into an exercise book. that way you can study them better when you get home.

Thanks twisted firestarter, that's a real good piece of advice. I have had quite some leaves shrink so much I could not identify them anymore!

 

[Risclean]

A good way to learn identification is to go out and about with someone with good ID skills. For example coutryside rangers do guided walks, and nature reserves should aswell.