California Plants

Dr. Matt Ritter teaches botany at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and luckily for us non-students, he also lectures up and down the state of California and occasionally writes books and articles. His knowledge and passion for plants, and especially trees, is contagious when you get to hear him in person. That passion and knowledge also runs through his writing. His previous book, A Californian’s Guide to the Trees Among Us (Heyday 2011) illustrates this perfectly. This easy-to-use guide can help anyone identify and learn about the trees in our urban forests and was loaded with fascinating information as well as enthusiasm and humor. Dr. Matt’s new book, California Plants: A Guide to Our Iconic Flora is a guide to the flora of the state of California. The forewords to the book by Edmund G. Brown Jr., Governor of California as well as David Myers of the Wildlands Conservancy, and Dan Gluesenkamp of the California Native Plant Society all speak to the incredible diversity of the state’s plant life and the challenges presented by land use, climate change, and habitat loss.

This new guide is beautiful to look at. The plant profiles are arranged by habitat, giving us the most commonly found...