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Plant Identification and Selection

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Looking for plants? Try The Elisabeth C. Miller Library's Guide to ... Sources for Plants

Other Useful Sites

American Forests National Register of Big Trees
Provides information on some of the biggest known trees in the United States. American Forests invites you to send pictures and dimensions of some big trees you've encountered.

Andersen Horticultural Library's Plant Information Online
Plant Information Online is the largest online database covering currently cultivated plants of North America. Included here are current sources in North American nurseries for over 60,000 plants, over 150,000 citations to current plant science literature, and listings for more than 1000 North American seed and nursery firms. It's easy to navigate among the site's different sections. The site is updated by the AHL staff daily.

Apple Pedigree Database
Home Orchard Society's database of apple cultivars, with details on a cultivar's parents, children and bloom time.

Cyndi's Catalog of Catalogs
Lists both on-line nursery catalogs (with links) and print only catalogs. Cyndi organizes catalogs by specialties and also includes other gardening links

Desert USA: Desert Plants
An informitive site with photos and cultural information on a number of desert flowers, trees, and shrubs. It also includes links to related articles about desert wildflowers and life in the desert.

Everyrose.com - Search for a Rose
This useful database allows you to identify roses on expansive criteria, such as name, color, growth, habitat and even fragrance. You can chose to view thumbnail images of the roses you are searching or simply read information pertaining to the rose in plain text.

Flora of North America
FNA's mission statement reads: "FLORA of North America (FNA) is a project undertaken by North American botanists to provide authoritative, up-to-date information on the names, relationships, characteristics, and distributions of the approximately 21,000 species of plants that grow outside of cultivation in North America north of Mexico." This extensive database of North American plants is organized by family, then down the line by genus and species. The information provided includes a detailed botanical description, citations to selected references, line-drawing images, which can be inlarged to positively identify the plant, and relevant links.

Friends of the Trees
A Portland-based non-profit organization, Friends of Trees advocates for urban forestry issues. They provide education about greening urban areas and caring for existing trees in the urban forest.

Gardening-UK
An online clearinghouse for the catalogs of the numerous retail nurseries and garden centers in Great Britain.

Interactive Keys - Descriptions, Illustrations, Interactive Identification, and Information Retrieval from DELTA Databases
This site makes available numerous data sets of plants and animals that work with a free program called IntKey. First download and install this small program, then download a data set such as Grass genera of the world or Flora of China, which will trigger the program to run. By selecting certain traits, such as leaf shape, non-conforming taxa are eliminated. Use GardenWeb's Glossary for help with botanical terms.

The International Plant Names Index
The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) is a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of all seed plants. Its goal is to eliminate the need for repeated reference to primary sources for basic bibliographic information about plant names. The data are freely available and are gradually being standardized and checked

Introduction to Tree Identification
Illustrated lecture notes discussing how trees are broadly classified and the botanical terms used to describe leaves and twigs.

INVADERS Database
The University of Montana hosts this excellent database of exotic and noxious plants growing in the Northwest. The database can be searched by common or scientific name, by county, or by choosing an area on a linked map. The results list the counties the selected weed has been documented growing in, as well as if it is noxious or not. There is also information on using biocontrols for certain weeds. The database does not show pictures of weeds.

King County DNR: Native Plant Sources for the Pacific Northwest
This listing of retail and wholesale nurseries and stores was compiled by the Water and Land Resources Division of King County, Washington for your convenience. The list draws in part on the Hortus West Native Plant Directory and the journal Hortus West.

Lavendelfoto Plant Image Database
A browsable and searchable "archive" of high quality images of plants and mushrooms with categories such as economic plants and plants of the bible.

Oregon State University: Landscape Plants
"This site contains images and information on over 450 landscape plants (mostly woody) listed in alphabetical order by genus, from Abelia to Zelkova."

Oregon State University: Trees of the Pacific Northwest
Identify common trees of the Pacific Northwest using an online indentification key. Simply click on the picture of the tree part that most closely resembles what you are trying to identify until you've found your tree.

Plants for a Future Species Database
The Plants for a Future Species Database contains details of nearly 7000 plants, all of which are either edible, have medicinal properties or have some other use such as fibers, oils or soaps. For each plant the database contains details of the uses of the plants, as well as information of the environment it will grow in and cultivation details.

Royal Botanic Gardens/Kew Plant Databases
The information contained here is essentially an online version of several publications published by the Royal Botanic Gardens. Those publications are Vascular Plant Families and Genera compiled by R.K.Brummitt, Authors of Plant Names edited by R.K.Brummitt & C.E.Powell, and Angiosperm DNA C-values database.

Royal Horticultural Society Plant Finder
"The RHS Plant Finder exists to put enthusiastic gardeners in touch with suppliers of plants, many of them unusual. There are over 70,000 plants in the RHS Plant Finder, a list compiled and updated annually from the catalogues of over 800 UK nurseries."

Seattle Department of Planning and Development's Tree and Landscaping Regulations
"DPD administers and enforces regulations related to development that affects trees. Whether at a major construction site or just in your backyard, if you are considering cutting, removing or preserving trees, this website will help you identify applicable tree and landscaping regulations in Seattle."

Seattle Street Tree Planting Procedures
The City of Seattle encourages the planting of trees along public streets. Trees must be planted to standards outlined on this Website. Lists of recommended trees, graded by size, and prohibited trees are linked from this site.

Silvics of North America
This is a full text electronic reproduction of Burns, Russell M., and Barbara H. Honkala, tech. coords. 1990. Silvics of North America: 1. Conifers; 2. Hardwoods. Agriculture Handbook 654. USDA, Forest Service, Washington, DC. vol.2, 877 p.
" The silvical characteristics of about 200 forest tree species and varieties are described. Most are native to the 50 United States and Puerto Rico, but a few are introduced and naturalized. Information on habitat, life history, and genetics is given for 15 genera, 63 species, and 20 varieties of conifers and for 58 genera, 128 species, and 6 varieties of hardwoods. These represent most of the commercially important trees of the United States and Canada and some of those from Mexico and the Caribbean Islands, making this a reference for virtually all of North America. A special feature of this edition is the inclusion of 19 tropical and subtropical species. These additions are native and introduced trees of the southern border of the United States from Florida to Texas and California, and also from Hawaii and Puerto Rico."

Tree Fact Sheets
Virginia Tech University Department of Forestry

University of Connecticut Woody Plant Database
This site includes information about trees, shrubs and vines that do particularly well in the Northeastern United States. You may search for plants by attribute or characteristic, or you may browse by Latin name or common name. Additional resources include a glossary of horticultural terms, a virtual plant walk through various universities and colleges and a fairly easy-to-use dichotomous key for identifying plants, trees and vines.

USDA Forest Service "Treesearch"
A repository of peer-reviewed and full-text information on research conducted by tree scientists in the Forest Service.

USDA Hardiness Zone Map
The United States National Arboretum gives a short history and explanation of the USDA plant hardiness zone map. Click on their link Map to actually see the map to learn your climate zone. The site also lists representitive plants by zone as well as an alphabetical list of popular woody plants and their respective zones.

Washington Native Plant Society's Photo Gallery
This photo guide includes a fairly comprehensive list of plants, trees, shrubs, vines and flowers native to Washington State. Choose from the alphabetical list of plants and see the habitat, bloom time and range of a particular flower. Or if you prefer, you can browse through categories of plants and trees, such as deciduous shrubs, grasses and ferns, among others.

Weed Images and Descriptions
The Rutgers Cooperative Extension provides close-up photos and descriptions of many weeds common throughout the U.S.

What Tree Is It?
Help with identifying trees by leaf, by fruit and by name--click on the chain of illustrated characteristics (fruit, leaf) for the tree you want to identify until you narrow it down to a genus and species with the help of this informative website.

What Tree is That?
The National Arbor Day Foundation's version of a tree identification tool. A series of pictures and questions are used like a dichotomous key to identify mystery trees by process of elimination.

More web site lists:

Select... Arboreta, Gardens and Herbaria Botany and Ecology Horticultual Bookstores and Publishers Libraries Organizations and Plant Societies Pacific Northwest Gardening Connections Periodicals Plant Care and Problem Solving Plant Identification and Selection The Traveling Gardener - Sales, Shows and Travel University of Washington Sites Other Horticulture-Related Sites

Last modified:
Friday, 10-Jul-2009 15:38:32 PDT