Recommended Wildflower Guides
Just Getting Started
Books with color photos, organized by flower color, time of flowering, or non-technical characters. A limited species list from a state or region.
- Wildflowers of the Tallgrass Prairie: The Upper Midwest. Second edition. Sylvan T. Runkel and Dean M. Roosa. University of Iowa Press.
- Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers: A Field Guide to Common Wildflowers and Plants of the Prairie Midwest. Second edition. Doug Ladd and Frank Oberle. Falcon Press.
Intermediate
Organized by plant family and genus or a non-technical key. Illustrated with photos or detailed line drawings of flowers and more options to choose from.
- Newcomb's Wildflower Guide. Lawrence Newcomb and Gordon Morrison. Little, Brown. (Eastern U.S., includes woodland flowers too)
- Prairie Plants of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Arboretum. Theodore S. Cochrane, Kandis Elliot and Claudia Lipke. University of Wisconsin Press.
- An Illustrated Guide to Iowa Prairie Plants. Paul Christiansen and Mark Müller. University of Iowa Press.
- Grasses, Sedges, and Rushes: an Identification Guide. Lauren Brown and Ted Elliman. Yale University Press.
Websites
National
State
Mobile Applications
Check out our Community Science page for other mobile applications beyond plant identification.
Tallgrass Prairie Center Videos
- Exploring Iowa's Native Plants (2020) — Six webinars and three virtual field tours show how to use Newcomb's Wildflower Guide, highlighting common plants in their season of flowering. Native and non-native.
- Grasses for the Masses (2021) — Seven-part webinar series beginning with four lectures on cool-season grasses flowering from mid-May through early July. Three lectures on warm-season grasses cover grasses flowering in late August – early September.