New Flora of the British Isles 2"d edition, by Clive Stace. Cambridge University Press.
1997. This is the book that most botanists use for serious recording. It has few illustrations
however, and several other books are needed as supplements. A more up-to-date version
with more detailed keys plus colour photographs, and covering 3500 taxa is Clive Stace's
Interactive Flora of the British Isles in the form of a DVD rom 2004. Many of the
colour photographs however, are rather vague and not very helpful for critical
identification. The Wild Flower Key by Francis Rose, updated and expanded by Clare
O'Reilly 2007. Frederick Warne. - has nice sharp illustrations with mini-drawings of
critical parts, and good critical keys, - but does not include all the species we are likely
to come across in Essex.. It is complemented by Francis Rose's Grasses, Sedges, Rushes
and Ferns. Viking. 1989.- which has vegetative as well as floral keys. The paperback
Grasses, by Hubbard 3rd edition 1984. Penguin. - is still by far the best for most of the
grasses. And the paperback Grasses, Sedges, Rushes and Ferns of Britain & Northern
Europe, Fitter, Fitter and Farrer. 1983 - is also extremely good value.
For really good quality line-drawing illustrations the 8 volume Drawings of British
Plants by Stella Ross-Craig. Bell & Hyman. 1971-1974 is unique, - now complemented
by Illustrations of (some) Alien Plants of the British Isles, Clement, Smith and Thirlwell
- although they did not draw any of them! BSBI. 2005. For good quality, accurate
colour illustrations The Wild Flowers of the British Isles by Garrard (artist) and Streeter.
Midsummer Books. 1983. - is in my opinion unsurpassed. Of the various Blarney books,
the large format: The Illustrated Flora of Britain & Northern Europe, Blarney and
Grey-Wilson. Hodder and Stoughton. 1989. - has a wider range of species than most,
and far more useful text than the other Blarney books with texts by Fitter. Two superb
Floras, now dated but with unfortunate histories are well worth looking for in second
hand shops. Firstly, A New Illustrated British Flora, Butcher 1961. Leonard Hill - in
two rather dumpy and bulky volumes did not sell veiy well at the time, having almost
coincided with the much enlarged 2nd edition of the Flora of the British Isles by Clapham,
Tutin & Warburg. CUP. 1962; and secondly the large format Flora of the British Isles,
Clapham, Tutin and Moore 3rd edition 1989 -notthe hardback 1987 edition, an almighty
cock-up of the kind that only CUP can muster with whole chunks missing and reputedly
over 1,000 errors - but the fully corrected paperback edition with a colour snap of
Cowslips on the cover. This highly detailed masterpiece was upstaged before it had a
chance to get going by Stace's first edition in 1991, and both are now (very) slowly
being upstaged by Sell and Murrell's Flora of Great Britain and Ireland with very
detailed descriptions and keys to just about every native and alien variant. So far however
only two volumes, 4 & 5 have appeared. Vol: 4 (2006) is invaluable however as it is
includes our only up-to-date authorative account of the Hawkweeds, and Vol: 5 (1996)
covers the Monocotyledons. Fortunately, neither suffer from the myriad editorial errors
of the 1987 CTM. Still not having learnt their lesson, however, CUP produced another
over-priced disaster with poor Tony Smith's 2nd edition of The Moss Flora of Britain
and Ireland. 2004. - with an unusable main key to genera and hundreds of setting and
pagination errors! Fortunately a largely corrected 2006 version is available free from
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 55, January 2008
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