I rely heavily on certain websites to write my descriptions. I’ve tried to refer to them within the write-ups, but it’s important to acknowledge sources, so I will list them here and include the reasons they are so helpful.
—Illinois Wildflowers: this website has some of the most detailed descriptions of individual plants that I have found. Many of the plants native to Michigan are also native to Illinois, information includes minute details about the plant, cultivation, habitat, photos, animal interactions, and extra notes. The best way I’ve found to use the website is to search, “ Illinois wildflowers Genus species”
—Minnesota Wildflowers: this website has lots of good information and usually the photos to show the described characteristics. But the best part of a Minnesota Wildflowers is in the lower paragraphs on each species page. There is a paragraph that informs about species you could confuse with the one you are looking at and how to tell them apart. Especially important for sedges.
—Michigan Flora: this website is imperative to understand the distribution of the plant in the state, to look through keys to understand how to ID the species compared to others in the genus, to view photos and see what can be gleaned from the descriptions. Go into the website and do your searches within it.
—Prairie Moon Nursery: this retail website sells seeds and plants. They carry 750 species of seed and have a description as well as a standard list of chacteristics of each plant (height, bloom time, color of flower, etc.
—Prairie Nursery: this retail website has great descriptions, but the most helpful to me is soil types.
—I occasionally use other websites like the Lady Bird Johnson website, Native Plant Trust and others if I can’t find the information I need on the others.
COMING SOON; a list of books that we use for growing, identification etc.
