- Paperback: 482 pages
- Publisher: A & C Black Publishers Ltd; 2003 Printing edition (30 Jun 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0713659440
- ISBN-13: 978-0713659443
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 14 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 253,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The first ever fully-illustrated, fully-mapped guide to the British and Irish flora. Its restriction to the British Isles alone allows far more detail and more local information, and identification which is made easier with the inclusion of extensive maps. Includes specific details about plants appearing in certain areas and coloured maps designed to make location and identification easy, this book also includes details of local specialities for the Isles of Scilly. Also featured is an illustrated survey of recently disappeared British and Irish plants, some of which may return. With over 2000 detailed colour paintings and more than 800 maps, this is the most extensively illustrated wild flower guide to Britain and Ireland yet. Coloured, boxed keys to plants in complex or difficult groups are provided to assist ID. The Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland features information about grasses, which are often omitted in other, shorter books, along with sedges, rushes, horsetails and clubmosses. Ferns, though not strictly speaking flowering plants, are also included too.
About the Author
Majorie Blamey:
Before becoming one of the leading botanical illustrators in Europe she was in turn a photographer, actress, wartime Red Cross nurse and ambulance driver, and with her husband Philip ran a Cornish dairy farm for 20 years. They sold the farm in 1968 to make field botany and painting a new career.
Before becoming one of the leading botanical illustrators in Europe she was in turn a photographer, actress, wartime Red Cross nurse and ambulance driver, and with her husband Philip ran a Cornish dairy farm for 20 years. They sold the farm in 1968 to make field botany and painting a new career.
Richard Fitter:
The most successful writer of natural history field guides in Europe. He has a lifetime of field experience.
Alastair Fitter:
Alastair drew the maps. He is Richard's younger son, and Professor of Biology at the University of York. In September 2003 he will become President of the British Ecological Society.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Not quite pocket-sized, but no bigger than most modern field guides, this might well be the standard illustrated guide for amateurs to the British and Irish flowering plant flora. The guide covers all naturally occurring species plus a large number of naturalised plants. As pointed out below, botanical experience will make the use of the book easier, since there is no general key allowing the user to identify families. However, I wonder how many beginners would really be prepared to spend the time passing each new plant through such a key. For those who can roughly identify a new plant to family and beyond, handy keys ARE provided for the larger groups.
The format is very similar to the "Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe" by the same authors, published by Collins. However, all the illustrations are new and improved. The previous guide's plates were often blurred or otherwise lacking in definition, a problem that does not occur here. A further improvement is the provision of maps that are small enough not to include for the majority of species yet large enough to allow for a fair amount of detail.
The section on grasses is new and particularly useful, truly enabling the user to identify all the flowering plants in the region.
The only other competitor would be Rose's "Wildflower Key" which I have in a 1981 edition, having not seen the current 2006 issue. All in all, the present guide is superior.
The format is very similar to the "Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe" by the same authors, published by Collins. However, all the illustrations are new and improved. The previous guide's plates were often blurred or otherwise lacking in definition, a problem that does not occur here. A further improvement is the provision of maps that are small enough not to include for the majority of species yet large enough to allow for a fair amount of detail.
The section on grasses is new and particularly useful, truly enabling the user to identify all the flowering plants in the region.
The only other competitor would be Rose's "Wildflower Key" which I have in a 1981 edition, having not seen the current 2006 issue. All in all, the present guide is superior.
38 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The first thing to say about this book is that contrary to what the previous reviewer said, this book does have keys. The whole book is a key. For example, all the bright yellow dandelion-like flowers are grouped together over about 3 pages; all the pea family is grouped together with the addition of a sub-key to narrow down the search (EG single flowers, group of flowers in tight heads etc.). The key that it is missing is a vegetative key for plants not in flower. However this is balanced by the inclusion of sections for common trees, ferns, grasses (inc sedges and rushes), clubmosses and aquatic plants.
All of these sections are illustrated brilliantly by Blamey. For example the grass section with its easy to follow key and all the grass flowers laid out in painstaking detail has made grass ID a far more pleasurable experience than it ever was using Hubbard. And for those people who think that illustrations are second best to a photograph think again. They make the illustrations in books like the Wildflower Key (Rose) look flat and lifeless and yet contain not of the distracting background that characterises many photographs. They manage to capture the vitality of each plant without obscuring detail.
Having used this book in the field several times I find that I always use this book when I know which family a particular flower belongs to. For those plants that I am unfamiliar with or that are not in flower I use the keys in Rose and then look the answer up in this book.
All in all this is a fantastic book for anyone who is not an absolute beginner (if really helps if you can recognise the plant families) and the only reason it does not get 5 stars is the lack of a vegetative key. If they were to revise it and include one then it would be perfect and I would certainly buy another.
33 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
to the collection. It's best described as a new version of the earlier Collins guide (same authors), but with two critical differences: there are now NO keys whatever, but there ARE thumbnail distribution maps. The illustrations are superb: a quick comparison with the Collins guide and Rose's 'Wild Flower Key' shows that this guide is probably the best, but not in every case.
If you're happy to take out something like Stace's (baby) Field Flora to use alongside, this book is brilliant as the lack of keys is irrelevant. But really, I feel that for a book of this size (it's really too big and heavy for a pocket), there should be more info - especially keys.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An extension of the basics
I generally prefer to have photographic comparisons of species but I do very much appreciate and enjoy this guide with its painted images. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Belochka
Comprehensive Flower Guide
This guide to wild flowers is extremely useful because it includes grasses, sedges and ferns. There are distribution maps for each species beside the descriptions, with... Read more
Published on 30 May 2010 by F. M. Tulley
beautiful illustrations
I bought this after my ancient Collins hardback Fitter/Blamey guide fell to bits. The illustrations by Blamey are absolutely beautiful and the book contains a wealth of absorbing... Read more
Published on 30 Jun 2009 by he132305
An absolute necessity for anyone interested in plant identification.
Having used and often relied on a much older version of this classic I was almost reluctant to buy the updated book. Read more
Published on 19 May 2008 by Allotment Junkie
The widest-ranging and most portable of the good guides
If you want a readily-portable guide, this is the one for you. It is more manageable and covers a wider range of species than the recently revised Wild Flower Key by the late,... Read more
Published on 2 Sep 2007 by Bristly Badger
Definitley not for beginners
I have to agree with Peter White. russvarley is right in stating that the whole book is a key. However, unless you know the plant you're looking at is, say, in the carrot family,... Read more
Published on 10 May 2006 by J Grainger
Stunningly illustrated
This book is a must have addition to anyone interested in botany. Marjorie Blamey's illustrations are second to none.
Published on 24 Feb 2006 by Hazel 444
Not for beginers
I was looking forward to receiving this book, but sady find it very hard to find anything except the obvious stuff I already know. Read more
Published on 5 Oct 2005 by Peter White
Listmania!
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