Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification Paperback – May 15, 2013

"Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification" is a comprehensive and user-friendly guide to identifying plants using the "patterns method," which is a unique and effective way of organizing and understanding plant families. Written by Thomas J. Elpel, an experienced botanist and naturalist, the book is designed to make botany accessible to anyone, regardless of their level of experience or expertise.One of the best features of the book is its organization. The book covers over 200 plant families, and it groups them into patterns based on their physical characteristics, such as leaf shape, flower structure, and seed dispersal. This makes it easy for readers to quickly find and identify the plants they encounter in the field. The book also includes a detailed introduction to botany, providing readers with the knowledge and understanding they need to use the patterns method effectively.Another great feature of the book is its use of illustrations, photographs, and descriptions. The book is richly illustrated with detailed drawings and photographs of plants and their parts, making it easy for readers to understand and recognize the key features of each plant family. The descriptions of the plants are also clear and concise, providing readers with the information they need to identify and understand the plants they encounter.One of the most striking things about "Botany in a Day" is its author's ability to simplify the often-complex subject of botany making it accessible to anyone who is interested in nature, whether they are a professional botanist or an amateur naturalist. The author's easy-going writing style and sense of humor make the book a joy to read, and the knowledge you gain from it will be invaluable when out in the field.It is comprehensive, user-friendly, and packed with the information and resources you need to identify plants quickly and confidently. If you're someone who loves nature and wants to explore the world of botany, I highly recommend reading this book.

This is thorough, beautifully illustrated, I’m glad to have found this!

I haven’t finished it yet but I can tell it’s going to always be useful. The title is deceiving as I don’t know how I could finish it and comprehend it all in a day. It’s way more informative than I thought it would be, but that’s a good thing!I was thinking it would be more like a “For Dummies” book or overly basic. But it definitely is not. I guess some schools use this as a textbook for Botany classes.

I hike for a few hours each morning to start the day. I became interested in knowing more about the plant life that I passed by. This book is very well written and illustrated and it's for the novice who starts off by knowing not much at all about plant names and family linkages. It's very easy to read, suitable for all ages, and adds interest to a long hike in open or wooded lands.

I love, love LOVE this book because it gives you knowledge you can use to help identify plants anywhere in the world. It is exceptionally well done with lots of full color illustrations along with a college course's worth of practical botanical information. I cannot recommend it highly enough!

_Botany in a Day_ isn't a field guide per se. The construction of the book doesn't lend itself easily to being schlepped around outdoors (especially here in the northwest.) That said, it is the single best introduction to plant identification I've come across. The first chapter gives a broad overview of plant evolution (from mosses and ferns to "naked seed" plants to flowering plants). The tutorial doesn't "dumb down" the genera, and gives a strong foundation for further classification of plants.Having explained the plant kingdom as a kingdom, Elpel's following chapters further break down the Linnean (or "binomial") nomenclature of plants, both showing and explaining the dicotyledon and moncotyledon classes and the families of composite flowers, with some "tricks" to identify broader patterns in plant families. General plant anatomy is illustrated and explained as well.Armed with this basic information, you now have the tools to begin "keying" to identify specific plants. To make the process easier, Elpel models how to "key" by asking specific questions: which division does the plant belong to? is it a moncot or a dicot? are the sepals united or separate? are the petals united or separate? what do the stamens look like? how many pistils are there? The purpose here, I imagine, is to give readers the ability to identify plants without a field guide - to *be* a lay-botanist, or to identify flowering plants either by photos taken, or samples taken from the field and examined at home.While the amont of information is astounding (Elpel's guide has hundreds and hundreds of plants), it is a book for the generalist: all images are illustrations, and specific species are identified only as part of larger sub-families. Finding specific plants is tricky: the key in the beginning of the book will give you the common name or subfamily of a plant, but not the specific page where you can find more information about various genera of the plant; the index is gives the common name or subfamily of a plant and the page where it can be found, but flipping back and forth from front to back and then to a specific page is a bit of a hassle. This is the only negative remark I have about this book.If you are interested in a proper field guide, I recommend Plants Of The Pacific Northwest Coast: Washington, Oregon, British Columbia & Alaska (for those of us up here) or A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central North America (Peterson Field Guides). For beginning or amateur botanists or artists, I strongly recommend this.

This seriously has been moved to my list of favorite plant books. I’m currently studying to be a plant biologist. I personally found it useful for my plant systematics class last spring. I’m back for another copy! We went over everything this book discussed plus more, but I felt like the information in this book covered has a lot of the important things learned in the class.