This guide covers approximately 1,800 of the many thousands of North American wildflowers. These species are most of the flowers that you are likely to see on this continent north of Mexico. The species content includes photographs of every species, range maps for every species, detailed species accounts, and extensive information about wildflower families.
Wildflowers can be identified by several search systems provided in this guide and on the allied AudubonGuide mobile wildflowers application.
The search functions include:
Quick Search— A search by general shape.
Family Search — This search provides a list of 119 families of wildflowers. When you click on a family, each species belonging to that family with be shown arranged alphabetically by first name, last name or scientific name (per your choice).
Common name search — Search by the first name or the last name (e.g. either "American" or "Bittersweet" for "American Bittersweet.")
Scientific name search — For example American Bittersweet’s scientific name is Celastrus scandens.
Advanced Search — A search by any one or more of the following variables:
Shape
Habitat
Region (or zip code)
Color
Flowering months for a species. (The flowering months are inclusive, and the results will include all wildflower species that flower anywhere in North American during the indicated months.)
Zip Code Search — You can also search simply by zip code to find all of the wildflowers within the zip code area you specify.
This guide illustrates with at least one example most genera of North American wildflowers and represents the variation found among species of some of the huge eastern families, such as asters, mints and mustards, and the western groups, such as lupines, beardtongues, and evening primroses.
