This easy-to-use guide to the most visible families of California desert flowers includes family and genus keys, color photographs of nearly 300 species, and a wealth of diagrams. Created as a primer on identification to family and genus, California Desert Flowers takes readers to a new level of understanding and appreciation of wildflower relationships and their habitats and adaptations.

PREFACE
INTRODUCTION

ACANTHACEAE
ASCLEPIADACEAE
ASTERACEAE (COMPOSITAE)
BIGNONIACEAE
BORAGINACEAE
BRASSICACEAE (CRUCIFERAE)
CACTACEAE
CAPPARACEAE
CUCURBITACEAE
FABACEAE (LEGUMINOSAE)
FOUQUIERIACEAE
HYDROPHYLLACEAE
KRAMERIACEAE
LAMIACEAE (LABIATAE)
LILIACEAE
LOASACEAE
MALVACEAE
NYCTAGINACEAE
ONAGRACEAE
PAPAVERACEAE
ROSACEAE
SCROPHULARIACEAE
SOLANACEAE
ZYGOPHYLLACEAE

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHS
ANNOTATED REFERENCES
INDEX

Sia Morhardt is Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies at Pitzer College. J. Emil Morhardt is Roberts Professor of Environmental Biology and Director of the Roberts Environmental Center at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of Clean, Green & Read All Over: Ten Rules for Effective Corporate Environmental and Sustainability Reporting (2002).

"I am impressed with the attractive format, the excellent color photographs, and the simplified, workable keys to family and genus."—Edwin A. Phillips, Emeritus Professor of Botany, Pomona College and the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden

"These fine photographs and clear explanations of plant families, genera, and species will entice the amateur botanist lucky enough to be exploring the California deserts and their wildflowers."—David M. Gates, Professor Emeritus of Biology and former Director, Biological Station, University of Michigan

"This beautifully conceived book not only provides an outstanding introduction to the magnificent wildflowers that carpet California's deserts in years with sufficient rainfall, it does so in a way that skillfully introduces users to plant families and genera and thus gives them a foundation of understanding plants wherever they find them."—Peter Raven, Director, Missouri Botanical Garden

"[This] is an easy-to-use work that can serve equally well as a stand-alone guide to a casual day trip or, for more advanced botanists, as a practical companion to the Jepson Manual."—John N. Trager, Curator of Desert Collections, Huntington Botanical Gardens