Reviews

• This well-illustrated, accessible field guide to the UK’s difficult plant groups is a joy to read and easy to use. The reasons behind the plants’ complexity are clearly explained and the use of tabular keys is an excellent tool which directs you quickly to the most reasonable identification of your plant challenge. This book will be appreciated by both casual and specialist botanists because of its clear, engaging, authoritative prose, focused detail and accurate illustrations.
  —Dr Colin Clubbe, Senior Research Leader, Kew Gardens
• This hugely helpful book teases out the trickiest groups and adds the kind of nuanced detail on growth form, morphology and habitat that the ‘standard’ books can’t deliver. I’ll be using it in my own work to finally tackle those difficult brambles, but will also use it as a teaching aid for my students to help them see into the subtler aspects of the botanical ID process. This is the closest a book could get to actually being in a room with a plant ID specialist.
  —Dr Sarah Dalrymple, Co-Chair, Skills and Training Committee, Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland
• How many times have we snapped our wildflower guides shut in frustration, defeated by docks or muddled by marsh-orchids? Well - dare I say it - this book might just finally be the answer we’ve all been waiting for. It's beautifully illustrated, easy to use and so desperately needed - I’m really excited to finally sort out those hawkbits and hawk’s-beards!
  —Leif Bersweden, author of Where the Wildflowers Grow
• Frustrating Flowers and Puzzling Plants is a fabulous new guide for understanding those tricky groups that you have left at the end of your visit, pressed mournfully in a folder marked 'to be confirmed'. I love the summary tabular character matrices, the clear illustrations and quirky facts dropped into each introduction. I thoroughly endorse this fabulous book and look forward to sharing it with my own students.
  —Sue Dancey, Identiplant Tutor
• John M. Warren's book tackles the trickiest of taxonomies, helping us understand our umbellifers and suss out our speedwells. It's funny, clearly written and absolutely fascinating.
  —Nic Wilson, The Guardian country diarist
• A really useful and readable book which gives you all the fine detail and understanding that is missing from your typical wild plant ID guide.
  —David Swales, BNA News Bulletin
• People who grow and photograph orchids, particularly indigenous ones, often have an interest in the other wildflowers that grow with them. This book gives a unique method of getting to grips with them.
  —Isobyl la Croix, The Orchid Society of Great Britain Journal