As you are foraging in your neighborhood or in the local parks and forests it’s imperative that you make a strong identification of trees, herbs, and flowers before you harvest. These field guides will help you identify the plants in your area. Do make a positive identification using at least 3 independent sources before trying an unfamiliar species. Be safe.
The following field guides are available online as downloadable PDF documents. The copyright for these documents will be with the individual authors and publishers. All links lead to external sites.
To download a document to your computer, highlight the link using your mouse. Right click with your mouse and choose from the drop down menu “Save as…”
If you find other downloadable plant field guides that you believe should be on this list, please add the links in the comments on this post and we can add them.
North America Field Guides
Canada
BC Tree Book Link
https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/library/documents/treebook/treebook.pdf
Vancouver
http://www.nwplants.com/business/catalog/fieldguidecolor2012.pdf
Field Guide to Native Shrubs and Trees of Alberta
http://www.insideeducation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/TreeShrub.pdf
Field Guide to Native Trees of Manitoba
https://www.gov.mb.ca/sd/forestry/pdf/health/fieldguidefinal.pdf
Native Plant Guide for the Niagara Peninsula
https://npca.ca/sites/default/files/NPCAPlantGuide_0.pdf
Nova Scotia
https://novascotia.ca/natr/forestry/veg-types/pdf/vegtypes.pdf
USA
Field Guide to Forest Plants of Northern Idaho
https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_int/int_gtr180.pdf
Field Guide Pacific Northwest USA
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs144p2_045486.pdf
Texas Tree Identification — Texas
http://isatexas.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Key_to_Texas_Tree_Species_TFS.pdf
Native Trees of Virginia
http://www.dof.virginia.gov/infopubs/Native-Tree-ID_2016_pub.pdf
Mississippi Trees
http://www.fwrc.msstate.edu/pubs/ms_trees.pdf
Native Trees of Alabama
http://www.forestry.state.al.us/PDFs/100/100%20Forest%20Trees%20of%20Alabama.pdf
Indiana
https://www.depauw.edu/files/resources/trees_at_the_Nature_Park.pdf
Alaska
Guide to Alaskan Trees
https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT87208698/PDF
Identification of Non Native Trees of Alaska
World Field Guides
Edible and Medicinal Plants of Australia
http://old.greatbaikaltrail.org/sites/default/files/edible-and-medicinal-plants.pdf
Australia
Laos and Vietnam
http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/document/566415
Dehli
South East Asia
http://www.fao.org/tempref/docrep/fao/005/AC775E/AC775E00.pdf
Flowering plants handbook – worldwide
This link leads to a website where you will be able to download the pdf directly to your computer. But the link is not to the pdf document.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267510854_The_Flowering_Plants_Handbook
If you find more field guides that you think should be on this list leave a link in the comment on this post so that we can add them.
Thanks.
Alison Gonzalez says
https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT87871553/PDF
not a new version but the only one I could find that was free for trees in New Mexico
Chris dl says
Thank you