Photo Source: Amazon
Michael A. Homoya
Indiana University Press; $22.95
We’re obsessed with the local. Local food, local beer, local arts and crafts … and the modern cry is to “shop local.” We’re all for that here at ILG, but truly, what’s more local than the very land we inhabit?
You’re in luck. IU Press’ field guide to wildflowers and ferns is a handy and beautiful book that you can take anywhere to identify the local lovelies of our Indiana landscape.
Author Michael Homoya knows his stuff: he’s been a botanist/plant ecologist with the DNR for over 30 years. And his easy-to-digest guide covers wildflowers and ferns, for sure, but also shrubs, trees, grasses and sedges.
Glossy photos detail each gorgeous (Michigan lily) or foreboding (poison ivy) organism, and the guide is color-coded so you can thumb directly to the plant in question.
For those of you who really love your plants, this book offers a plethora of baby names, such as Lopseed, Squawroot and Bladdernut. Oh wait, I meant to say those are great band names! How about Buttonbush for your little daughter or son? Or Betony or Buckwheat or Lobelia?
OK, maybe you don’t want to name your band or baby any of these beautiful words, but safe to say, this guide is replete with poetry. The poetry of terminology and the poetry of nature.
Get it today; nearly 500 pages of living local!
