Flora of Steens Mountain

Rating:
Summary: no coffee table book
Review: This is a great guide to the plants of Steens mountains, very detailed. If you are only casually interested in the plants of this area, be forewarned that this is not a picture book, but rather a key with excellent descriptions.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive Guide for SE Oregon, SW Idaho, and N Nevada
Review: This is the most comprehensive field guide of any sort that I have ever seen! It's perfectly designed to help one identify any unknown plant in the Steens. Having been to the Steens Mountains I've witnessed the great diversity of the flora and the detail put into this guide for each individual specimen is most impressive!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent field guide!
Review: This is the most comprehensive field guide of any sort that I have ever seen! It's perfectly designed to help one identify any unknown plant in the Steens. Having been to the Steens Mountains I've witnessed the great diversity of the flora and the detail put into this guide for each individual specimen is most impressive!

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive Guide for SE Oregon, SW Idaho, and N Nevada
Review: This is the ultimate botanical sourcebook for Steens and surrounding areas of Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada. Finally a single book covering this area, which as the author points out, contains plants at their geographic limit from several different floristic regions of the West. I was pleased to see a key included. So many popular field guides have forgone keys and only include select species. This key includes every species known from Steens and adjacent areas. If you have ever found yourself frustrated because the plant at hand isn't in your book, this is for you.

For the most part, the organization of the book is good. I was disappointed to see monocots and dicots lumped together in one alphabetic section. The author's intent was to make use easier for the amateur, but I found it frustrating. The black and white illustrations are well done. I found the color plates disappointing. Because of the quality of the paper, the ink has soaked in, obscuring detail and toning down contrast. However, it is easy to overlook this short-coming because of the wealth of information in one convenient source.