Alexander C. Martin

I liked it - great introduction for the most common trees in the U.S. Recommended for anyone interested in identifying trees in your neighborhood and learning how they're useful. It's also the right size to stick in your pocket if you want to.

The main advantage of the little golden guides is that they're little: you can stick a couple in a bag and barely notice the space or weight. And because of that, they pack as much information as possible into he books. And they pack in a lot. The text also tends to be readable in a way that a lot of field guides aren't: I have often whiled away a picnic or car trip just reading straight through one. They have good color drawings of pretty much every entry, too, which is my favorite type of show more illustration. They tend to make up space by not including as many different entries, though. In some guides this is just frustrating; however, what they usually do is describe related groups of plants as a whole, rather than each individual species. This isn't great when you're trying to figure out a species dammit! But it's really good training at making those "approximate" IDs, especially in cases where the species-level distinctions can be fairly subtle, and it lets the very small guides cover a lot of material in a very useful way.

The Golden Weeds guide is one of only three books in this entire pile that I actually bought new, and it's one of my most-used and my very favorites. It is, as the title hints, specifically focuse on the weedy roadside plants that are my special interest, and it has almost all of them, with great illustrations and descriptions. It goes on my walks with me, and this is the book that usually gives me my starting place, even if I have to look elsewhere to confirm or narrow it down. show less

I love these kinds of guide books. Sure, they don't show all the species of a given area, but they have great illustrations that inspire a kid--heck, an adult--to learn the general category before embarking on the intimidating journey of identifying more specific regional specimens. In my case today, I find it encouraging for continuing to learning botanical illustration and have a few "cheat sheets" to study some of the most common species in the area I moved to, which is across the show more continent from where I used to live. show less

One of several pocket-sized Golden Guides that lined my shelves back in the day. This is probably the book where I realized that I was interested in viewing things and learning about them, more than learning how to identified specific ones. I mean that learning the names of things is not the point, but enjoying them is.