The 7 Best Peterson Wildflower Guides (2023 reviews)

We consider a peterson wildflower guide to be a worthy investment in the long run. We are here to help you choose the right one for your purposes from all the best available products in market today.

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Our Top Picks:

Best Overall: Buy: Steven Foster Peterson Wildflower Guide READ REVIEW

Best For putting In A day pack: Buy: National Audubon Society Peterson Wildflower Guide READ REVIEW

Best Field Guide: Buy: Christopher Hobbs Peterson Wildflower Guide READ REVIEW

Best For beginner: Buy: Margaret Mckenny Peterson Wildflower Guide READ REVIEW

Best For upper Midwest: Buy: Roger Tory Peterson Wildflower Guide READ REVIEW

Best For Trees Of Western North America: Buy: Petrides Great Field Guide READ REVIEW

Best For Most common subject matters: Buy: Petrides Peterson Wildflower Guide READ REVIEW

Best Overall: Steven Foster Peterson Wildflower Guide

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We are personally inclined towards steven foster peterson wildflower guide, it is not so pricy, but it overachieves its purpose and outstanding in important aspects. This book is a little different than the 'Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs. It is a great book for the outdoors person. It has lots of amazing remedies and old fashioned cures. It is an excellent addition for cross reference with other field guides because there are many color photographs and descriptions that can be compared. It is great for identifying common plants you see in your yard or on a hike and answers to what they are and how they were sometimes used.

The best part of this book is the way it looks on the shelf next to others in the series.

• Must have for anyone interested in herbal medicine
• Great quality and in depth descriptions
• Excellent field reference with concise text and full-color readable photos
• Comprehensive, great photos, excellent descriptions of uses and the plants themselves

Best For putting In A day pack: National Audubon Society Peterson Wildflower Guide

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The national audubon society peterson wildflower guide is satisfactory and appropriate and fits well with your daily usage. The out of print book is great for persons that already have knowledge of what to do with wild flowers. It provides photographs and drawings that make identification much easier. The pictures are beautiful and useful most of the time, though not all of them have the leaves clear, and the leaves are important in identification.

The geographic scope and major Eastern habitats are clearly laid out giving the boundaries to the content. The flowers are easier to identify with color photography, complete with close up caption. Full color plates as well as maps of distribution and descriptions of habitats are provided in this book, which is light and therefore quite easily portable. It includes many more species to add to that takes up some room in the pack.

It's also fairly compact and good for putting in a day pack.

• Colored thumb plates with explanatory symbols help to quickly find and identify each wildflower
• Has an extensive collection of wild flowers
• Great for beginners and field reps
• Very easy to use, pictures and descriptions very specific

Best Field Guide: Christopher Hobbs Peterson Wildflower Guide

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Not everyone likes to purchase guide for their daily usage, but the christopher hobbs peterson wildflower guide would be an anomoly. They are not meant to have every bit of information on a plant, or herb. They give basic info to use in the field to give you enough knowledge on what you can do or not do (if its poisonous or not) while in the field. It is used to treat water retention and painful urination and to soothe lung inflammation.

• A field guide of medicinal plants
• A great way to teach your kids plant taxonomy and identification
• New and hot release

Best For beginner: Margaret Mckenny Peterson Wildflower Guide

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The features department is where margaret mckenny peterson wildflower guide truly manages to shine. Flowers are arranged by COLOR not taxonomy, and detailed illustrations make most identification puzzles easy to solve. This is a great field guide with lots of color plates and thousands of line drawings you can use to identify flowers in your yard. The book utilizes helpful icons, which are featured at the top of all the descriptive pages for quick thumb-through reference.

This guide is a nice adjunct to Newcombs guide, the Bible for wildflower enthusiasts This book uses color to seperate the many genus/species which is more of a search and find endeavor. There is lots of color pictures, black and white drawings, and descriptions of each flower along with bloom times and locations. The flowers are first arranged by color and the book is color coded. It features and arrows on the drawing point them out. This is a good book for taking with you when walking.

• Very detailed with a huge variety of flowers
• Excellent choice for all nature lovers
• Delivers what they promise

Best For upper Midwest: Roger Tory Peterson Wildflower Guide

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The roger tory peterson peterson wildflower guide is satisfactory and appropriate and fits well with your regular usage. This is a great field guide for trees and shrubs. It has everything you would ever want to know about leaves and the tree they are attached to. It is great for when you're a bit more of an expert than a beginner. There are no color photos or drawings in this book, just black and white drawings with some of those for the leaves colored in green, and most entries don't have even that.

The key and line drawings are helpful. There are some tree silhouettes at the beginning of the guide but otherwise the plates only show leaves, twigs and fruit or flowers if present. This guide does tend to leave out important information such as whether or not a tree or shrub's fruit or seed is poisonous, if the sap is dangerous to humans, etc.

• Small, illustrations, enough information to identify hundreds of trees, colored images
• One of the new comers and featured product

Best For Trees Of Western North America: Petrides Great Field Guide

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Best part: petrides great field guide costs comparatively low and it is available to ship in 24 hours. It is a great field guide for trees located in the western united states. It has heavy, glossy paper which makes it very heavy to carry in the field. It can be used by native americans to waterproof woven bottles and to cement turquoise jewelry. It does not cover all woody plants like shrubs.

It is compact, but the photos are clear and full color. There are also clear directions on how to find the tree you are looking for, and the area it is normally found in. It is also good for iding native trees in western north america.

• Great photos, illustrations, id methodologies, and maps
• Good investment for long term

Best For Most common subject matters: Petrides Peterson Wildflower Guide

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The petrides peterson wildflower guide's superior materials makes sure that it ages well with use. The Peterson field guides are always great,great info, easy to navigate and superb information. This little book is perfect to take along on a trip or picnic to identify trees. It is good for a young child and easy to carry in a backpact.

This book is made to carry in the field, well designed for that purpose and will probably fit into most large pockets. The drawings are accurate and they give specific indicators for each species. It is easy to navigate, however these are truly a pocket guide and much thinner. It is easy to carry, but these are great reference books for identification without too much detail.

• Great guide, gift for a friend who is a biology/nature person
• Good brand reputation