Here, at last, is a lavishly illustrated manual for ready identification of 299 common and economically important weeds in the region south to Virginia, north to Maine and southern Canada, and west to Wisconsin. Based on vegetative rather than floral characteristics, this practical guide gives anyone who works with plants the ability to identify weeds before they flower.
• A dichotomous key to all the species described in the book is designed to narrow the choices to a few possible species. Identification can then be confirmed by reading the descriptions of the species and comparing a specimen with the drawings and photographs.• A fold-out grass identification table provides diagnostic information for weedy grasses in an easy-to-use tabular key.• Specimens with unusual vegetative characteristics, such as thorns, square stems, whorled leaves, or milky sap, can be rapidly identified using the shortcut identification table.
The first comprehensive weed identification manual available for the Northeast, this book will facilitate appropriate weed management strategy in any horticultural or agronomic cropping system and will also serve home gardeners and landscape managers, as well as pest management specialists and allergists.
"This is a thorough and well-designed book that's been needed for a long time. The system of having both drawings and photographs accompanying the description of each plant will be of great help to amateur gardeners as well as to professional growers and horticulturists. The identification tables are also very useful."
Barbara Damrosch
"Knowing your opponents is the first step in weed prevention. Weeds of the Northeast is businesslike and well photographed—a useful tool for the conscientious gardener."
From the Publisher
"This impressive factual Weed Identification Manual, the first ever compiled of the Northeast, is thorough and well designed.... This is a distinctive book and reference guide on weeds, one that will be welcomed in a library, school, garden club, a gift for friends, and definitely a copy for yourself."
Jan/Feb 2005 Horticulture
"I highly recommend Weeds of the Northeast if you ever happen to be in a masochistic mood and don't have a sharp stick handy with which to poke yourself in the eye. As I leafed through the pages, wincing at the depressingly clear color photographs, a horrible sense of familiarity set in. Ninety-nine percent of the weeds were in my garden. It was like looking at a family album of all your least favorite relatives. There was mean and scary Great-Aunt Margaret (Scotch thistle); passive-aggressive Cousin Isobel with the mustache (hairy bittercress); Uncle Ralph with the drinking problem and disgusting table manners (prostrate pigweed). Despite the feeling of nausea that gripped me, I was able to gather much useful information of a scientific sort. As Nietzsche said, that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger, and so I suppose my encounter with an army of unnaturally über-weeds could be looked at as an exercise in character-building."
