This volume is an exquisitely illustrated guide to 350 eastern woodland wildflowers and trees found on site at Sugarloaf Mountain, Maryland. The text describes each plant's flower, leaf, and growth habit, gives its ideal habitat and range, describes similar species that might be confused with the plant, and gives a herbal history where applicable. And because plants are organized by family and genus, the scholarly reader can build on his or her botanical knowledge. It includes a user-friendly key, an illustrated glossary of frequently used botanical terms, and contains nearly 400 elaborately and artistically detailed pen and ink drawings to make plant identification simple and fun.
Melanie Choukas-Bradley is the co-author of City of Trees: The Complete Field Guide to the Trees of Washington, D.C. and a contributor to the Washington Post. Tina Thieme Brown has been a landscape artist and environmentalist for twenty years. She currently serves as campaign director for Solutions Not Sprawl, a regional alliance working to protect open space.
"Surely such a familiar landmark and its flora need no introduction. But leaf through the book (or better yet, get Brown and Choukas-Bradley to take you on a tour) and you realize that while the rest of the world has been looking at Sugarloaf through a telescope, this intrepid pair has been using a magnifying glass [...] Their record of these [trees and wildflowers] has become one of the most complete guides to local upland flora available, and they hope it will be used not just in other natural areas but in back yards where people want to raise native plants themselves."
– Washington Post
"In between a field guide and a botanical manual, Choukas-Bradley and Brown have created a must-have [...] to tote into the woods of Sugarloaf Mountain. The authors have included every flowering plant they observed during ten years of extensive hiking and exploration on Sugarloaf. This guide would be useful to any naturalist, serious or casual, venturing into the wilds of the Northeastern United States and adjacent Canada."
– E-Streams
"This book contains an easy-to-use, nontechnical botanical key for flowering plants – herbaceous and woody alike [...] The author describes each plant and its individual parts, all related species, and details on the plant's growth habit, its natural range and habitat, its bloom time, and where it can be found on Sugarloaf Mt."
– Solidago: The Newsletter of the Finger Lakes Native Plant Society