Excellent tool for learning So. Calif. plants and plant ecology

Customer review by M. Long "nature bibliophile"

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Some may be reluctant to buy a CD instead of a book to learn the names of plants in the San Gabriel Mountains and Southern California. But there are at least two advantages this CD has over a book. It is the only color photo guide to cover so many plants, 258 species, and it allows a myriad of searching features (unavailable in a book) to pin down an identification and to learn more about a plant. This is a terrific CD full of information (birds, butterflies, wildfire, environmental adaptations) and after you've used it for about a week you will just begin to discover how much interesting detail is packed into many nooks and crannies. You can return from a hike and use a built-in quick search feature for the blue flowers blooming in July and there's even a quiz for students of all levels. One strength is the excellent choice of sharp photos, about 4 to 8 for each species, illustrating the plant in it's habitat, close-ups of leaves, flowers, fruits and other identification features.

The authors are naturalists who developed their broad knowledge of plants directly from the field by hiking throughout the mountains and foothills and they worked hard to insure this CD keeps the beginning and mid-level plant student in mind, while being useful to the advanced botanist. Get this CD!