From Plant Press, Vol. 22, No. 4, October 2019.
By Robert J. Soreng
Over the last 12 (to 26) years several field guides to grasses of western United States were published. See the list of cited field guides below with notes on each of them.
Of these guides, those for Alaska (Skinner et al., 2012), Nevada (Perryman & Skinner, 2007), Oregon & Washington (Roché et al., 2019), Texas (for the most part) (Shaw, 2012), and Wyoming (Skinner, 2010) are fully illustrated with photographs of habits and diagnostic parts, sometimes supplemented by line drawings. One additional guide listed below, for Wisconsin (Judziewicz et al., 2014), covers many of north central prairie grasses, and is very thorough and excellently done.
Four other western guides are amply illustrated with line drawings (with or without a few photos): California (Smith, 2014), Colorado (Shaw, 2008), New Mexico (Allred, 1993), and the Intermountain Region (Anderton et al., 2009). You may also find two recent illustrated contributions from Chihuahua (Herrera Arrieta & Peterson, 2018), and Coahuila (Valdés-Reyna, 2015) useful for our southern border regions. Excellent illustrations in these guides are mainly reproduced from the Flora of North America (FNA; Barkworth et al., vol. 25, 2003 & vol. 24, 2007), Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest (Hitchcock et al., 1969), or Manual of Grasses of the United States (Hitchcock {Chase ed.}, 1951). I also recommend the 2nd edition of the Flora of the Pacific Northwest (Hitchcock et al., 2018), which has been extensively updated for taxa and taxonomy, and still has great illustrated keys. Grass species are still difficult to key out, and having good photos to aid identifications makes a world of difference!
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