Flowering Plants of the Sierra Nevada: A Photographic Guide to Over 1000 Wildflowers

The most extensive guide to identifying the flowering plants in California's richly diverse Sierra Nevada mountains.

This photographic guide to the wildflowers of the Sierra Nevada has been over twenty-five years in the making, drawing together spectacular images by Stephen Sharnoff, the photographer of the acclaimed Lichens of North America, and informative text by botanist Joanna Clines, who has decades of field experience and is a top authority on the region's flowers. Comprehensive and deeply researched, it will help users identify 1,000 flowers found in California's iconic mountain range, from our celebrated manzanitas and lovely lupines to tiny California popcorn flowers. The book's detail will satisfy die-hard plant experts, while helpfully annotated photographs--pointing to fruits, anatomical features, and color variations--will guide beginners to botanizing.

The geographic range stretches from the western foothills through the alpine zone, and down to about 6,000 feet on the eastern slope; and from Lake Almanor in the north to the Tehachapi Mountains.

Joanna Clines has been the forest botanist for the Sierra National Forest since 1990. Clines served on the boards of the California Native Plant Society and the California Invasive Plant Council, and she is past president of the Sequoia chapter of CNPS. She lives in the Sierra Nevada and can be found botanizing on or off the job, often at dusk.

Stephen Sharnoff wrote and illustrated A Field Guide to California Lichens, and he and his late wife, Sylvia Sharnoff, did the photographic fieldwork for Lichens of North America. A Guggenheim fellow, his photographs have appeared in numerous books, exhibitions, and magazines, including National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Science News. He lives in Santa Fe.

Peter H. Raven, PhD, is president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Engelmann professor of botany at Washington University at St. Louis. Raven's botanical research and work in the area of tropical conservation have earned him numerous honors and awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship. He has written 17 textbooks and more than 400 articles, and he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council.