Written by Heather Holm; Published by Pollination Press, LLC

Reviewed by Susan Harkins

I’m fond of saying that my favorite flower is the one I’m looking at. Similarly, my favorite book is the one I’m currently reading. However, when I say that Heather Holm’s Pollinators of Native Plants is one of my favorite books, I mean it. I keep just a few reference books close at hand, and this book is one of them.

It’s the most comprehensive, photo-filled book I’ve found on identifying the native pollinators that depend on our native flora. Every plant has a two-page spread that contains what you need to know about that plant to determine if it’s a good fit for your property and a full page or more of all the native pollinators it will attract. You get a full picture.

Its use goes beyond identifying pollinators: it’s one of the first books I pull out when wanting information about a particular plant, with or without consideration of its pollinators. However, when I want to identify a pollinator, it’s my go-to book. Often, I’m looking for host plants. This book supplies that information plus clear pictures of the pollinator in larvae form, which is invaluable when determining if I have an invading force in the yard or I’m seeing normal wear and tear by native beneficials.

The largest part of the book comprises the two-page spreads of 65 native plants. A few chapters in the beginning offer general advice from anatomy to ecothreats. At the end of the book, you’ll find visual botany glossaries, charts, garden designs, and more.

Pollinators of Native Plants is an outstanding reference on native trees and flowers that support our native pollinators. The detailed yet friendly layout make it easy to apply the information to your own property.

Heather Holm currently lives in Minnesota where she assists with native been research projects, the most recent being a study on native pollinators and cultivated blueberries. As a community supporter, she helps restore city-owned property for pollinators and people. You can keep up with Heather’s speaking engagements here: https://www.pollinatorsnativeplants.com/.

Susan Harkins is the Managing Editor of The Lady Slipper.

Authors, Judy Burris and Wayne Richards; Publisher, Storey Publishing

Reviewed by Susan Harkins

When authors Judy Burris and Wayne Richards were kids, they spent most Saturdays in the woods with their mother. Those early adventures turned into a passion for bugs—lucky me! I say lucky me because Judy and Wayne channeled that passion into one of my favorite books, The Life Cycles of Butterflies.

This award-winning book, originally written for children, is a great resource for all ages. After an informative and creative introduction to butterfly anatomy and life cycle, the remaining book focuses on individual species. Four consecutive pages are packed with gorgeous photos and useful information on a single species. Within those four pages you’ll see pictures of the species’ egg, chrysalis, caterpillar, and adult. You’ll also see host and nectaring plants, and read interesting facts such as breeding range, average wingspan, and so on.

If you’re educating or entertaining children, you have all you need from the get-go. The book tells you what to plant to attract a specific species and then helps you identify what wanders into your yard and sets up a nursery. It’s easy to take this book out into the yard and quickly identify a species by egg, chrysalises, or caterpillar. But you don’t need to be a child to appreciate this book.

Perhaps the back cover is my favorite part; it’s covered with pictures of butterflies common to our region. Often, I don’t even open the book. Rather, a glance helps me identify an adult quickly with little effort, and before it flies away–that beats a traditional field guide in my book!

Even though this book is marketed as a children’s book, it is a tremendous resource in any adult library.

It’s important to note that not all plants mentioned in the book are natives, although an asterisk marks invasives. Be sure to do your homework before purchasing plants. The authors are available for public programming.

By Reed Noss

Reviewed by Jonathan O.C. Kubesch, University of Tennessee

I work in the space between traditional agronomy and ecology with my career in grasslands. While I refer to journal articles for the bulk of my work, a reference book holds an important place for my field. Generally, I go to the library or through hearsay to come across some obscure text with a great description of this species or that agricultural practice. Ah, the life of a graduate student! However, in the case of Reed Noss’ Forgotten Grasslands of the South: Natural History and Conservation, I could not have found a better time to dive into a well-assembled dissection of these oft-overlooked ecosystems. My copy comes courtesy of Dwayne Estes (Southeastern Grasslands Initiative), and came it to me while in the field looking for running buffalo clover (Trifolium stoloniferum) in Davidson County, Tennessee. After an unsuccessful hunt, I poured over the book in concert with my own travels around the Southeast.

Noss thoroughly expands the conceptual grassland well beyond the tallgrass and mixed-grass prairies of my background to include the glades, buffalo traces, and barrens. Following the author’s same journey as an Ohio buckeye gone south, I happened to visit Myakka State Park in Florida as part of my best friend’s wedding and got a similar feel for Southern grasslands that Forgotten Grasslands highlights in an interweaving description of basic ecology and applied conservation. While broad in geographic range, the book gives a great description of the Bluegrass Region and some of the floral diversity present within the relatively developed region. Having just sampled the native clover in the region, I then read into the magic of my travels within the wider context.

The grassland ecological model put forward is a strong one for natural systems and is explored in the context of systems dominated by fire, soil, water, and herbivory. Kentucky’s ecological diversity offers examples of all these natural processes. KNPS members might think of river scours in comparison to calcareous glades. Colorful plates showcase the diversity of ecosystems and the species richness within these systems. Land Between the Lakes and the inner Bluegrass are featured alongside Blue Licks Battlefield State Park.

Conservation is a key concern in Kentucky’s native plant sphere. In addition to the floral diversity of the Southeast, the economic opportunity, favorable climate, and social hospitality have led many to move here. Rather than running out these recent arrivals, highlighting this biodiversity and the backyard endemism is seen as a promising strategy to improve the future of these plant species. While not everyone will push through a Solidago key, we can all appreciate the various forms that grace the state. Even outside of the strict grassland context, Daniel Boone National Forest and Big South Fork offer well-marked sandworts for beginners and a diversity of pignuts (Carya spp.) for the initiated.

Forgotten Grasslands of the South appeals to the reader as a primer on these often overlooked ecosystems. Most of us have a collection of carefully-chosen botanical curations and do not generally gather the wider system. However, Reed Noss has succeeded in seeing the grassland through the trees.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to John A. Lodi of Ann Arbor, Michigan for inspiration and suggestions on this review. Thanks to the Chance and Lodi family for giving me a relaxing time to read and discuss this book with a wider popular audience.

Jonathan Omar Cole Kubesch is a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in crop science at the University of Tennessee. He studied evolution and ecology—as well as agronomy—at the Ohio State University. He works on forages, grasslands, and prairies with a particular passion for native clovers.

Book Review written by Nick Koenig

By Dan Dourson and Judy Dourson

With Important Contributions by Halard Lescinsky (Geology), Adam Rollins (Myxomycetes-Slime Molds), Alan Cornette (Cultural History), Tara Littlefield (Plant Life of Red River Watershed), Julian Campbell (Species List)

Illustrations by Elijah Hicks unless otherwise stated

Photographs by Dan Dourson unless otherwise stated

Published by South Limestone Books (an Imprint of the University Press of Kentucky), Lexington, 2019

Dan and Judy Dourson are avid botanists and naturalists, as well as active participants in the Kentucky Native Plant Society’s Annual Wildflower Weekend. In 2019, Dan and Judy co-authored a book that gives a reader an extensive snapshot into the plant life of the Gorge.

Wildflowers and Ferns of Red River Gorge and the Greater Red River Basin is an enjoyable book to throw in one’s hiking pack or place on a coffee table for perusing through after a day full of botanizing. Dourson and Dourson elude early on the purpose of their book — among many purposes — is to highlight this “lesser-majority” of organisms that may not be as eye-catching as eagles, but are often the overlooked yet the speciose majority of living things in the forest. While most of the book highlights the plant life, a prehistoric and cultural history lesson of the Gorge is first given, followed by an in-depth geological and biological background of the area.

The bulk of the book consists of pictures and drawings of the plant life in the gorge with a short description of the species following. The plants are broken down by taxonomic groups starting with the non-flowering organisms transitioning to the Fern and Fern Allies that have accompanying illustrations by Elijah Hicks that complement the pictures greatly.

The next part of the book makes it a great help if one is hiking in the Gorge and finds an unknown flower. Before the flowering plants is a color flower chart with the flowering time of the year, which can help narrow down the search to just a small chunk of pages to flip through. This makes locating the species much easier and more approachable than a traditional dichotomous key. The book ends with a glossary and an extensive species list.

Wildflowers and Ferns of Red River Gorge and the Greater Red River Basin is a wonderful addition to one’s botanical library especially for a naturalist looking for a deep understanding of the life forms in one of Kentucky’s most treasured natural areas.

Nick Koenig

With illustrations by Gillian Harris, text by Michael Homoya, verses by Shane Gibson

Rubber Ducky Press, Indianapolis, 2019

Reviewed by Katherine Newkirk

Like the forest understory this book explores, Wake Up Woods is richly layered. Though loosely aimed at early elementary kids, the book will entice all ages along its several paths. Each stunningly illustrated two-page spread features understory bloomers along with associated visitors, a four-line verse and a paragraph of botanical information.

Many a preschooler will keep turning pages in search of critters such as the field mouse, six-spotted tiger beetle and marbled orbweaver. Illustrator Gillian Harris brings out the energy and “personalities” of both flora and fauna in exquisite biological detail. More than 50 illustrated species are listed with their common names and Latin binomials in an appendix.

Young readers will enjoy sounding out the rhymes by poet Shane Gibson, while their adults may smile at his humor. Christmas fern, for example: A fiddlehead / No strings attached / Unfurled beauty / Spring’s here at last. I found an occasional rhythm or rhyme challenging and also wondered what will happen when young readers bump into words like sepal, whorl and proboscis. Luckily, a glossary explains 26 specialized terms.

Nature lovers of all ages will enjoy the illustrations, and I predict many will learn new things about relationships among understory species, thanks to botanical text by Mike Homoya. For example, “After bloodroot goes to seed, elaiosomes (food bodies) that are attached to the seeds attract ants, which carry the seeds to their nests underground. Some ants carry them as far as forty feet away from the plant!”

Wake Up, Woods is dedicated to “all children who find delight in the awakening woods,” but I suggest that Wake Up, Woods will delight and inspire nature lovers of all ages. I hope it finds its way into laps and libraries everywhere.

Katherine Newkirk is co-editor of the Indiana Native Plant Society Journal.

Kentuckian Karen Lanier’s Wildlife in Your Garden is a bountiful resource for Kentuckians hoping to turn their property into a wildlife heaven. This book provides an overview of how to leave the old paradigm of monoculture yards behind and cultivate your property for the benefit of wildlife—flora, fauna, and human. In the author’s own words:

“The purpose of this book is to help you reconnect with your wild side and the green space just outside your door by discovering the importance of the patch of earth that you tend and the creatures who find sustenance there.”

That’s a big promise, and Lanier delivers. This book won’t turn you into a landscaper, but it will whet your appetite for change and offer sound advice for implementing that change. Lanier encourages you to observe and learn about the surrounding ecosystem. She advises you to use natives and explains their importance in the big picture—indeed, without natives, there is no big picture. On the practical side, there’s advice on a myriad of gardening topics, from improving your soil, choosing the right plants, solving specific garden-related problems, and much more. Each page is packed with encouragement, advice, and gorgeous pictures.

Wildlife in Your Garden isn’t a step-by-step gardening manual. Rather than how-to, this book helps you see why you should—and then helps you evaluate your green space differently, so you can implement a plan for change. Lanier assures you that becoming a good steward will change your life, and that of the surrounding wildlife, for the better.

Karen Lanier, naturalist and educator, currently lives in Kentucky. She has worked as a park ranger from California to Maine in national and state parks and in wildlife rehabilitation, wildlife education, and even made a documentary on deforestation in Brazil. Lanier holds degrees in photography, foreign language, conservation studies, and documentary studies as well as a professional environmental educator certificate. She is actively involved with the Lexington, Kentucky chapter of Wild Ones.