Mount Shasta in Northern California has an interesting flora, and also has one of the most interesting field guides to that flora. “Mount Shasta Wildflowers” uses the watercolor paintings of Edward Stuhl (1887-1984) for its images. Stuhl was born in Budapest and studied art in Austria and Germany before coming to the United States to work in stained glass. He quickly left that pursuit and ended up in northern California where he spent the rest of his long life painting the native flowers that he grew to love.
Four authors combined forces to bring this book into being, it appears primarily to make the Stuhl art collection, housed at California State University Chico, better known. They have also spent considerable effort to make this a worthy field guide by ensuring the taxonomy is up to date, providing a comprehensive and updated plant list for Mount Shasta, and giving guidance – through a series of recommended hikes – to finding each of the subjects.
A detailed visual index, with roughly inch-square reductions of the images arranged by colors, is a charming way to find your way through the book, but my favorite feature is the illustrated glossary with examples of numerous flower and leaf parts all taken from Stuhl’s paintings.
Excerpted from the Winter 2016 Arboretum Bulletin.