(Part 2) Best products from r/botany

So I don't study ectomycorrhizal common networks like the subject of this radiolab, but I do study composition and functioning of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

If you can get your hands on this puppy, I would do so. It's not a sit down and read book, but it's definitely a great reference.

My current advisor wrote this, it's a little out of date in parts but it's worth reading, right now on amazon its a little pricey but I got my copy for 5 bucks.

The wiki is also a good start.

If you find some papers and can't get to them because of a paywall pm me.

Newcomb's Guide to Wildflowers is probably the best intermediate-level field guide to the northeastern USA: it is organized by # of flower parts (not colors) & uses latin names, and is the best guide in the general area unless you get into Gleason & Cronquist which is a big heavy book that's intimidating for beginners.

If you have woods / wetlands nearby, there's a lot you can learn on your own. Sometime while you're still in the area, though, you should go to the NJ pine barrens. There's lots of neat botanical stuff down there: Webbs Mill Bog is a good place in the northern end of the Barrens; there are plenty of hiking trails in Brendan Byrne SF; and if you go to Batsto Village there are some trails there with interesting habitats.

The "nearby" botanical societies to where you live are the Philadelphia Botanical Society and the Torrey Botanical Society. They have field trips and sometimes there's something of interest in northern NJ or the Catskills.

Another good book relevant to the are is Plant Communities of New Jersey -- it is a lot easier to understand plant species when you can also get a sense of the larger context. This is a good book and it talks about the different types of areas in the state -- Hunterdon is in the more northern wooded area of the state, where the glaciers just about ended, whereas the Pine Barrens is south of the glacial extent. Soil types + glaciation affected the types of plants that will grow in a particular area.

Have fun -- I never liked living in NJ when I was a kid but now that I live somewhere else + am into botany, it's a good place to visit. Go figure.

There are a lot of definitions of invasive, and the idea is not to get too caught up in semantics. Just as there are a lot of different views of what determines a species. The context is very important here. I interpret this subthread to mean that Seranoa repens is invasive to certain ecosystems, or that urban expansion has created conditions that encourage growth of the plant that wouldn't otherwise exist. Invasion Biology - Mark A Davis is a great book to read if you're interested.

Like others have said, learning what characteristics plant families have makes plant I.D. so much easier. If this is something you really want to learn, I'd recommend a book like Wendy B. Zomlefer's Guide to Flowering Plants or Practical Plant Identification by James Cullen. Both of those should give you a rundown on common plant family characteristics and help you narrow it down at least to a family, if not a genus. Being able to accurately I.D. plants quickly is mostly practise, though; the more you do it, the easier it gets.

Though, because you don't think it's a native plant, once you have a rough idea of what it is, you can look at ornamental plants that will grow in your zone.

If in the US, I highly recommend America's Botanical Beauty by James Reveal. It is a great history of botany in America. It won't teach you how to identify plants, but is a great overview of the botanical process and the contributions of the major botanists.

haha ya, root rot can be a killer. Easiest thing to do is like you said, let it dry out between watering. The killer for root rot is STANDING water, its fine if any of your plants are moist constantly. What causes root rot is lack of O2 to the roots. They suffocate, die, and rot. I keep all my plants constantly moist, but this miracle berry doesn't care how moist it seems. I can give you a few tricks I learned over the years.

1. Place rocks in the bottom inch of the pot. This lifts the dirt off the ground allowing better drainage, better airflow through the bottom of the pot, and prevents the plant from sitting in water when over watered.
   
2. by a bio-active product or fertilizer. I have root excellerator which basically cures root rot in my experience (not guaranteed or anything, but I've seen it do some damn good jobs). Another I use is Jobes organic fertilizer. It has lots of micro organisms just like root Excelurator. This helps by adding O2 loving bacteria to the soil and helps fight off the O2 hating bacteria.
   
3. more or less if you do those 2 things, and water only when mildly moist or dry, you shouldn't have much if any problems with root rot.
   
   Root rot killed and affected many of my plants when i first started off. Very frustrating, but I highly recommend the products i named. Another good one come to think of it is aqua-shield. Its made of chicken compost (and its a liquid) and it promotes similar bio-activity as those mentioned above
   
   Moral of the story: Healthy soil, healthy plant
   
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Jobes-09026-Vegetable-Granular-Fertilizer/dp/B002YOJDAS/ref=sr_1_1?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1420215371&sr=1-1&keywords=jobes+organic
   
   http://www.amazon.com/House-Garden-Roots-Excelurator-100/dp/B00BR5K3TA/ref=sr_1_1?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1420215368&sr=1-1&keywords=root+excelurator
   
   www.amazon.com/Botanicare-BCNSASQT-Aquashield-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00286QSUK/ref=sr_1_6?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1420215455&sr=1-6&keywords=aquashield
   
   There are many more out there, but these are the ones I personally have used and know work well.
   
   Sources: Obsessed with plants, Manage a greenhouse

My herbaceous plants prof used this^ book a lot! Great for helping identify common characteristics within families.

This is also a great pictorial field guide for learning botanical terminology: https://www.amazon.com/Botanical-Field-Guide-Symbols-Keywords/dp/0977577147

Japanese garden knife: https://smile.amazon.com/Japanese-Garden-Landscaping-Digging-Stainless/dp/B0007WFG2I?sa-no-redirect=1

Great for collecting. I hope your friend wasn't collecting in a park, though. That's usually not allowed!

Finding stuff for bryophytes is tough (online, that is. If you can get ahold of it, I would recommend this book). The resources I might direct people to would be course sites like this or this. Finding good info on liverworts and hornworts is tough though, especially given the name changes. For the best online key, I would say you should check out the Bryophyte Flora of North America.

You're looking for books about ethnobotany. Comprehensive books that cover different uses from all over the world are hard to find and expensive. This one has a nice general overview of the field:
https://www.amazon.com/Ethnobotany-Modern-Perspective-VAJRAVELU-RANI/dp/0757572510

Most books will focus on a specific region, culture, or a specific use for plants, so if you're looking for something cheaper, it's probably best to pick a location, people, or specific use for plants that you're interested in. Search for ethnobotany plus some relevant keywords.

https://www.amazon.com/RHS-Encyclopedia-Gardening-Christopher-Brickell/dp/1405322276 is a good general manual for the UK. Great for techniques, tools and explaining terminology. If you want a good list of garden plants (mostly cultivars) with pictures and description I would look no further than RHS A-Z Garden Plants. 2 huge volumes.

This book is pretty awesome, and it has all the plants you listed with their respective extraction methods and pharmacological data... http://www.amazon.com/Medicinal-Plants-World-Ben-Erik-van/dp/0881926027 I would suggest finding it for cheaper than it is listed here though.

Awesome! One of my favorite books, pages 270-272. Yep. It's not listed in it for Harrison County either. You should send this find to Dr. Evans at Marshall. evans@marshall.edu

Much of the "science" in The Secret Life of Plants has been disproven, or was already known to be wrong even when the book was published. For example, there is no scientific evidence that plants actually respond to music. Yes plants respond to vibration and heat (which can be produced by speakers), yet there is currently no evidence that plants can actually "hear" music, and definitely no evidence that plants can tell between different types of music. That's all pseudo-science perpetuated by this feel-good book.

For anyone interested in learning more about what current science actually says about plants, I highly recommend a book called "What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses" by Daniel Chamovitz. This book breaks down much of what we know about plants (through verifiable scientific experimentation), and presents the information using every day language in a way that's easy for anyone to understand. Great read!

If you're in Wisconsin, Vegetation of Wisconsin is pretty much our primer. Good luck!

If you want hardcore stuff, here is what I use:

• Flora of the Pacific Northwest - The full 5 volume set for all the illustrations
  
  
• Flora of North America around 30 volumes
  
  
• Biology of Plants by Peter (mother fucking) Raven
  
  
• Plant Systematics by Simpson
  
  
• Plant Identification Terminology