Wildflowers of the United States

Reference List for Virginia Wildflower Identification
Site	Description
Virginia Native Plant Society	Founded in 1981 as The Virginia Wildflower Preservation Society, the VNPS' purpose is to further appreciation and conservation of Virginia's native plants and habitats. It has over 2,000 members, publishes a newsletter, conducts field trips, and engages in habitat preservation activities.
Flora of Virginia App by High Country Apps	This is a must-have if you are serious about Virginia wildflower identification - or any other plant in the state. It was built as a partnership with the Flora of Virginia project, a massive flora of over 3,100 Virginia species (see link to the book on this page), authored by Ludwig, Weakley, and Townsend - about as authoritative as you can get. An extract from High Country's description: "The FLORA OF VIRGINIA app is a complete guide for learning about the plants of Virginia, whether a wildflower from a weedy roadside, a shrub from a coastal dune, or a tree from a deep Appalachian hollow. The app does not need an Internet connection to run, so you can use it no matter how remote your wanderings take you." It even contains the dichotomous keys from the book - but of course there are shortcoming to trying to use those. However, it also contains a "Graphic Key" which allows you to include color of the flower to help identify it. You can get the book for around $100, or the app for $19.99. I was given a copy of the app for review, but receive no other compensation; I just like this app!
Wildflowers of Augusta County, Va	Paraphrased description from the author, Dr. Eric Jones of the School of Science at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, VA: The site is the result of a quarter century of teaching a field botany course, mainly to nonmajors, and a love of photography. This site is an attempt to introduce you to 240 of the wildflowers of Augusta Co. VA. All pictures taken in Augusta County VA, located at the Southern End of the Skyline Drive - Northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin	Perhaps the most comprehensive native wildflower information site in the United States. "Discover more than 10,050 plants native to North America."
USDA Plants Database	Great resource for native plants! Their own description: "The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories." Provides these important (to me) pieces of info: 1) Listing by state and county within a state where specific species have been identified. 2) Scientific name synonyms are listed. 3) Scientific names are matched to a widely-used common name. 4) Photographs of many species. 5) State by state list of all the species identified in that state. Official Citation: USDA, NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 22 June 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.
Flicker Wildflower Field Guide, North America	Over 9,000 Flickr member photos tagged with wfgna. The WFGNA group has good tagging requirements for their excellent photos, so you'll find, in addtion to the photo, the state in which the photo was taken, and at least a common name and the scientific name as identified by the contributor. After you get to the linked page you should add search criteria, including the state name, the color of the plant, or scientific name, to reduce the number of photos. Several states have several hundred photos(California has over 1,500!) so you'll probably want to add color to the search criteria.
WildflowerSearch.com	Steven K. Sullivan has done a tremendous job of putting together a database and search engine to help in identifying wild plants. Not only can you search by plant scientific and common names, you can narrow the results using location (currently lower 48 states and parts of Canada and Mexico), flower shape, color, size, habitat, and observation time. His database currently includes over 7,000 plants. Definitely worth checking out.
Item at Amazon: Flora of Virginia (Commission to USWildflowers.com if purchased)	Flora of Virginia is the result of a massive 11-year undertaking to produce THE authoritative work on the plant life of the state of Virginia. Anything botanical that includes Alan S. Weakley as one of the authors will be a valuable addition to the library of the professional or serious amateur botanist. This book covers all of the known 3,164 plant species found in Virginia, including not only technical descriptions and keys, but illustrations for 1,400 of them. It is not a field guide, but a research reference to be held in great esteem.
Item at Amazon: Wildflowers of Tennessee, the Ohio Valley and the Southern Appalachians: 2nd Edition (Commission to USWildflowers.com if purchased)	A product of the Tennessee Native Plant Society, this excellent and comprehensive field guide covers over 1250 species using 800 photographs and valuable descriptive text. While the focus is Tennessee, it's area of coverage includes the entire states of Kentucky and West Virginia, as well as large parts of 13 other states. In addition to the description of the plants it has an interesting look at botany from a historical perspective of the region. While the main part of the book is organized by plant family, there is a color-keyed section of thumbnails that allows a quick scan for identification, and there are illustrated keys for 12 of the families. This is my favorite wildflower identification book that I have, and I consider it a "must have" for wildflower enthusiasts in the region.
Wildflower Information.org	From the site: "WildflowerInformation.org is a resource for wildflower enthusiasts and gardeners. With a growing interest in the environment and natural gardening, our objective is to offer comprehensive information that is easy to use, and accessible for those from the casually interested to the expert." While this information doesn't appear to be on the website itself, WildflowerInformation.org seems to be owned by American Meadows, the "recommended wildflowers seed supplier" of WildflowerInformation.org.
Item at Amazon: Wildflowers in the Field and Forest: A Field Guide to the Northeastern United States (Glassberg Field Guide) (Commission to USWildflowers.com if purchased)	This is a photographic field guide discussing more than 1,500 species of wildflowers found in the Northeastern United States. Plants are arranged arranged by flower color. Within color flowers with other similar attributes such as leaf arrangement and petal arrangement are grouped together. Based on the little bit I've been able to see of the book on Amazon, it appears to be pretty good, but it may have sparse supporting descriptions of the plants that are frequently needed if you want to identify to the species. It received good reviews (4+stars) on Amazon.
Item at Amazon: National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers--E: Eastern Region - Revised Edition (Commission to USWildflowers.com if purchased)	"...gives full descriptions of more than 650 species found east of the Rocky Mountains, along with notes on several hundred more. The eminently sensible organization relies on first-impression visible characteristics..." I use this guide frequently, and unless I have a good idea what family a flower is in, this is usually still my first stop. In my opinion, a must-have for beginning wildflower enthusiasts; augments more locale-specific wildflower references.

Looking for Wildflowers for a specific state? Check here: Number of References for Virginia: 12