Recommended books to identify plants in the San Luis Obispo County area.

A beautiful introduction to the area is Wildflowers of San Luis Obispo, California, Edited by David J. Keil, PH.D. which is an excellent modern book with great color photos, and was "a cooperative project of the City of San Luis Obispo and the San Luis Obispo Chapter of the California Native Plant Society." (page 5) Any book by the CNPS is very good, by the way. They are a good organization, with a respected history, and dedicated to preserving and cataloging California natives, and watching invasives.

Central Coast Wildflowers, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara Counties of California by Mary Coffeen is also very good, with nice descriptions, and color plates. A little older, so check for scientific name updates online, perhaps by searching Calflora, but also the Jepson online should have a history of changes.

For the dunes, try Dune Mother's Wildflower Guide, Dunes of Coastal San Luis Obispo & Santa Barbara Counties, California, by Malcolm McLeod, California Native Plant Society. Excellent.

For the keys, use the Jepson online.

Posted on February 26, 2019 04:46 AM by leafybye leafybye

Comments

Thanks for the recommendations!

Wildflowers of SLO and Dune Mother's Guide as well as other books of botanical interest are available on the CNPS SLO website:
http://cnpsslo.org/bookstore
The wildflower guide to Carrizo Plains has been updated and will soon be available, also.

Posted by dkincmbria about 5 years ago

Thanks! I've been planning to join the local SLO CNPS soon, I am just busy and forgetful. This week!

Thanks for the link, I'm going there to spend some money on quality books. I am looking forward to the Carrizo Plain book.

Posted by leafybye about 5 years ago

A new resource from the San Luis Obispo chapter of the California Native Plant Society are illustrated plant lists through Calflora for over 30 local hikes. Most of these plants lists are from CalPoly professor David Keil and have been connected with the Calflora website to provide photos and detailed links for each plant. Check out this website: https://cnpsslo.org/resources/finding-plants-in-the-wild/

Posted by dipperanch over 3 years ago

For all Manzanita species, I highly recommend "Field Guide to Manzanitas" from Backcountry Press.

Posted by leafybye over 3 years ago

Add a Comment

Sign In or Sign Up to add comments
Member of the iNaturalist Network   |   Powered by iNaturalist open source software |   Documentation for developers