Northland Wildflowers: The Comprehensive Guide to the Minnesota Region, Revised Edition

When I graduated from college and lived in Minnesota, this was one of my most well read and used books during my free time during visits to natural areas. It is not comprehensive, but covers the basics. I appreciate the revised addition with abundant quality photographs depicting the plants I love. While I am in Michigan now, the book is still very applicable to my mid-Michigan woodland garden. The book remains a favorite. While the book is arranged by flower color, the organization makes it more difficult to study plants in the same family. It is interesting to see how the botanical names of some plants have changed over the years. My Asian colleagues seem both surprised and impressed to see how North Americans (Canadians, Americans, and Mexicans) let some areas of land remain untamed and how North Americans enjoy visiting and learning the natural history of the environment without the desire to control nor economically benefit directly from these settings. The book is a treasure, very portable, and a good companion.

I had the same experience with this book falling apart so contacted the publisher and Amazon. The publisher confirmed that there was a binding problem in the past with this book, but it has been resolved. Amazon is sending me a new one and I expect it to have a proper binding.Having said that, this is an absolutely beautiful book with stunning, detailed photos. One problem I often have with plant books is they only have a small part of the plant, such as the flower, in the photo making it difficult to identify plants that aren't flowering. For almost all photos in this book leaves, flowers, stems and often the entire plant is presented clearly. The information given on identification is excellent and helps to distinguish similar species from one another. I wanted to use this book to help me identify and learn the wildflowers of northern Minnesota and I think it will be perfect for that purpose.

While I really do like this book for the identification and species information, it apparently suffered the binding problem that others have commented about. I bought this book in "Used, Very Good" condition. I did not expect it to fall apart in multiple places when I opened it (!). Otherwise, I would have rated it 5 stars.

Love the book. We have prairie surrounding our house. Now can identify the wildflowers.

The very first time I opened this book, a page fell out. I subsequently pulled all the signatures loose and rebound the entire book with Gorilla glue. I would expect much better from a first-rate university press.

Great book, just what we wanted!

great resource

I bought my book in 2011. I love the content of the book, for images and information, I give content 5 stars.However the book fell apart. I am afraid to reorder for fear of getting another book that falls apart.Binding unworthy of Mn University Press for sure. I give the binding zero stars.