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The most popular reviews in /r/botany:
This timeless, easy to read book is still one of my favorites and had wonderful reviews.
Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification https://www.amazon.com/dp/1892784351/ref=cm_sw_r_fm_apa_i_mC4LDb8VEQD66
The Evolution of Plants https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198500653/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_h5mcCb2DWB5XA
The book is perhaps a bit dated now, here's a pretty interesting article from earlier this year on the origins of land plants:
Oh, also many vines/lianas exhibit what is called skototropism, which means the do grow away from light, at least at first. This is because they are looking for a tree to climb.
If they grew initially towards light, they'd be headed to a gap, which would not be as good as heading toward a tree.
[Here](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kunjithapatham_Dhileepan/publication/29660767_What_lies_beneath_The_pattern_and_abundance_of_the_subterranean_tuber_bank_of_the_invasive_liana_cat's_claw_creeper_Macfadyena_unguis-cati_(Bignoniaceae\)/links/00b...) is a paper where that is briefly mentioned,
Here is what looks to be one of the bigger/earlier papers on the topic.
I'm not a full fledged botanist, but I was able to find a few references to anodic and the variant spelling of cathodic (kathodic) here, hope it helps some: https://www.wordnik.com/words/kathodic : Given meaning: In botany, turned away from the direction in which the genetic spiral runs: said of that half of a leaf which has this characteristic. The opposite half is anodic.
Botany terms are based on Latin, Greek old English and sprinklings of other old languages. I'm studying Botany now and I'm currently having a hard time with this trying to learn. Hopefully it helps you search for terms in the future though. The counter-clockwise vs clockwise rotation of leaf furls is an interesting observation, best of luck seeing how it pertains to plant genera!
This is a good book to learn about California plant communities. https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-California-Plant-Life-Revised/dp/0520237048/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538069607&sr=8-1&keywords=california+plant+life&dpID=51SQuUbaLjL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
There are a lot of books on the native American uses of plants. They varied widely by tribe but here is one
The thing about California is it has a hugely diverse flora so it's a huge subject and the plants indigenous people used varied widely by location. The guide to California flora is about 4 inches thick contrast that with a guide to the Nebraska flora being a very thin volume.
One of the professors at my school, Matt Ritter, recently published a book on native California plants- California Plants: A Guide to Our Iconic Flora. It's awesome, would totally recommend!
There is also the Arizona flora seems very affordable on amazon also definitely available at university libraries and maybe public ones too
https://www.amazon.com/Arizona-Flora-Second-Thomas-Kearney/dp/0520006372
Just FYI this is a technical key lots of botanical lingo probably includes a glossary somewhere in there but if you don’t already have a sense of botanical terminology may be useful to get a book for that as well
Pink Clematis would be my best guess. There are a lot of varieties out there... but there are a few that closely approximate your flower.
Hey I studied botany at NAU up in Flagstaff. If you are an Android person Flora ID is amazing. It has keys but is also just asks you what your see (yellow flowers, 2 feet tall, alternate leaves, etc) then shows you pictures of what it could be. It's great. Not for iClones though that I'm aware of
If you want a book the fields guide to native plants of az is the standard. And is traditional key based
They can be a little pricey, but I would get him a plant press! Here's one on amazon that looks pretty good: https://www.amazon.com/BestNest-Nature-Press-12-18/dp/B009T817UG/ref=sr_1_1?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1473774825&sr=1-1&keywords=plant+press
The bigger/more expensive ones typically have ratcheting straps (and not screws) but your friend could always buy some separately if he wants. I'm a botanist and I use a press every day at work- if he's into collecting, this is definitely a tool he needs.
I got them from this seller on amazon.
If you need tips on getting them to grow I have those, too. It wasn't easy for a beginner!
This was the book I used at Uni: https://www.amazon.com/Bryophyte-Ecology-Smith/dp/9400958935
He was also my professor, which was great, sadly he has passed now.
It did at one time in certain parts. River Cane I can't find the paper, but it was so freaking thick in the American Bottom, surveyors would have to note it and go around.
You need the aradopsis T-shirt! https://teespring.com/en-GB/shop/arabidopsis-thaliana-t-shirt#pid=2&cid=2122&sid=front
I think a botany (translational) research subreddit might work. But, although biology/ecology folks know aradopsis, centering a group around a model organism might result in fewer Caenorhabditis elegans, Aspergillus nidulans, or Bacillus Subtillus nerds from collaborating.
Also, as a former professor, I think it's valuable to put serious discussions of new research front and center along with less "serious" discussion to encourage the passage of knowledge and discipline to new audiences.
It's not so much the amount of money for the lights, but the light they give off. Blue/Red lights are great for specialized growing phases, where as full spectrum white lights are good generalist for all phases.
​
(Here's one I'm using for my current set up, growing raspberries, tomatoes, and potatoes indoors with this light)
I just got this one. I love it. It is a hub of basic info to chase after deeper elsewhere.
A Botanist's Vocabulary: 1300 Terms Explained and Illustrated (Science for Gardeners) Hardcover – May 25, 2016
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1604695633/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/10QSHdZwvXeI_C2Ggel74qO-mrD0BFgvI
You might find this useful :)
Plant identification books depend on where you live. This is the bible for my area.
Audible has a great selection of e books with a free 30 day trial.
Botanicum great book for early and simple representation of botany.
A botanists vocabulary I highly recommend this one if you're interested in learning terminology with visual and verbal representation. This one helped me learn a lot in my early knowledge of botanical science, I'm no expert but I share a deep interest in the field.
Oh wow! This is actually perfect! For others interested here's a link
Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest https://www.amazon.com/dp/014012991X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_11rrAbFAF7NF6
I love my hori hori for collecting plant specimens. I know a leatherworker and I paid her about $40 to make a holster for my hori hori and favorite shears. I use it around the garden and when I'm out collecting.
I use an SLR camera extensively in documenting rare plant populations and my favorite accessory is a cross-body strap like this one: https://smile.amazon.com/waka-Release-Comfortable-Durable-Shoulder/dp/B07CLXDF9J I can hold the camera behind me while pushing through brush but still grab it quickly when I see a cool pollinator. The zippered pouch holds a spare SD card, which has saved me a long walk back to the car when one died suddenly. The best part is that the camera doesn't bang against my chest while I'm walking.
Another small tool that I love is a cheap GPS logger. You can record a track on your phone but this saves my phone battery and I have a good track of every place I walked during the day so it's easy to document my work.
Thanks! I'll look into this! We're just starting to cover info about permits in the class that I'm in right now. I hope to do some NSERC research down the road too. I just got this book earlier this week: https://www.amazon.ca/Botanists-Vocabulary-Terms-Explained-Illustrated/dp/1604695633
The diagrams are pretty clear as to what they are discussing and the explanations are easy to understand.
Raven biology of plants: https://www.amazon.com/Raven-Biology-Plants-Loose-Leaf-Evert/dp/1464117802
I'm in NZ, this is one of the main books I used at uni for plants. It's probably more north American based but there's probably the odd Aus example.
It starts off pretty basic and covers a lot but if you don't have a very strong biogy background then Campbell Biology is like the base of most first year biology courses and has all the basic concepts
If you don't want to buy them or can't get them from a library, google Library genesis
There’s this one book I got for one of my intro plant ID classes called Plant Families for Gardeners and Botanists, it covers a bunch of different families (though at a somewhat basic level), and honestly is a really pretty book because it has a bunch of illustrations in it of the plants
Some of the genera that needs genetic studies to set the limits of there species are Carapa, Erythrophelum and Santiria.
There are many more, but I'm no expert. I discovered this a while ago, in a studies about the delimitation of species in tropical forests of Africa.
Can't find it in english, but here it is just in case.
Keep in mind that we're still discovering "mistakes" in the old classification as we slowly break down each specie's dna. Some species are in fact several, but we couldn't tell without the genetics.
Also keep in mind that the very definition of specie is not clear and there's a lot of different definitions out there.
Books on your regions native plants- read them and then go out and identify. Recently picked up this book from a book store and it makes walks fun.
Shared the book as an example, look for your region to start. Also if you travel and have the ability to enjoy botanical gardens- do it!!! Visited Denver’s botanical garden and it was lovely. Also visited Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in St Paul MN and fell in love. Remember this is a life long learning journey - plants are all around us.
It isn't a botanist biography but I'm really curious to read "The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World" by Andreas Wulf. I don't know what type of character you're creating but this might bring another zest to him ;)
https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Nature-Alexander-Humboldts-World/dp/0345806298#
Maybe also something like this https://www.amazon.com/Around-World-Plants-Jonathan-Drori/dp/178627230X ?
I bought 'Around the world in 80 plants' this year, read it and really liked it. It also has usages in, but also some interesting history about the plants. And it comes with illustrations also.
Other then this I can't remember now.
Worked as a botanist on the Lincoln National Forest out of Alamogordo so I'm familiar with the Chihuahuan desert parts of the state.
Flowering plants of New Mexico is a good backpack book, but not a super technical key, but the illustrations do a really good job of pointing out what differentiates species and the range maps with every plant illustration is a lot more useful than you'd think it would be especially for someone new to the state.
Flowering Plants of New Mexico https://www.amazon.com/dp/0961217030/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_ER5JDC4VY5JMG03BW4YN
If you use an android phone/ tablet there is a technical app called
It works as a key in reverse, where you tell the app what is on the plant you are looking at (2 feet tall, opposite leaves with fine teeth, yellow ray flowers and green disc flowers or whatever) and it will show you pictures of what it could be. Works super fast if you can already get something to family or genus. Covers all vascular plants including graminoids and pteridophytes. I have it loaded on a ToughPad and don't really use anything else for technical ID.
Botany in a day! It's an incredible book that breaks down plant families. The focus is on the plants of North America but you should be able to ID a plant /category from anywhere in the world. https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Day-Patterns-Method-Identification/dp/1892784351
I thought it was a gimmick when I first got one, but now I could never go back to an unlit hand lens. The LED makes it possible to ID things in the evenings after a field day.
I use this one https://www.amazon.com/Magnifying-Pocket-Microscope-Magnifier-Jeweler/dp/B00JOX1JFY/ They aren't particularly durable, but they are cheap enough to replace. The extra magnification is really nice for seeing hairs and surfaces. 10x never seems to be enough.
It seriously looks soooo much like a moringa. If the flower was different, I guess it's not, but the leaf patterns and the shape of the tree and branches in general seriously reminds me of the moringa I grew last year. EDIT: just found a couple trees that might be it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowhai and https://www.google.com/search?q=sophora&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=573&sei=V1jUTo31Dsrs0gHAvqmeAg (some of the pictures on there have yellow flowers). Both of those have really similar leaves
Try looking up the nasa clean air study. I can't find the one I originally saw which was better but here's this
They determined what light gradient the hosts were in by referring to this study of juvenile tree communities. If you look closely at the image of Eucryphia cordifolia (C), you can clearly see the forest floor close by, so this was not taken from up in the branches of a mature tree.
Also, the leaves of B. trifoliolata individuals growing prostate on the ground looked the same as those of individuals climbing bare trunks with no nearby leaves to mimic. If light availability is the factor causing change in appearance, shouldn't there be a difference?
I don't disagree that more research is needed. Your personal hypothesis of light availability being the main factor, however, seems to be a bigger leap than what the current observations allow.
Just had a quick Google ("auxin cytokinin ocimum basilicum") and this was the first paper I found:
Under the "materials and methods" section the authors described using different dosages of BAP in combination with a fixed amount of NAA (misspelt ANA) to create different ratios. BAP in this case is the cytokinin and NAA is the auxin. There're also some graphs describing the results.
I think you might be having trouble recognizing the chemical names of auxins and cytokinins. Don't be afraid to Google!
This is the go to reference:
https://www.amazon.com/PDR-Herbal-Medicines-Thomson-Healthcare/dp/1563636786
My edition at least has dosages by organ, contraindications, and citations of studies.
Without knowing where your site is located on Kodiak Island, I'm going to say no. It's unlikely that you'll find evidence of leafy green vegetation in March. While the average temperature during that time may have been above freezing, the threat of frost was still very real. Normally, green-up is in May.
Here is an ethnobotanical resource for Calliandra eriophylla.
No its definitely more than one cell. Just check some pictures of sections. And regarding the simple=ancient part: here is an interesting paper on this topic.
I'm going to re-pot them in a tub, and build a trellis out of 2x3's.
“Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener: How to Create Unique Vegetables and Flowers,” by Joseph Tychonievich is a great read and I think it’s exactly what you’re looking for. Here it is on Amazon
Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener: How to Create Unique Vegetables and Flowers https://www.amazon.com/dp/1604693649/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_7Y11MBB17A2KBB8JVAMR
This book is a very good reference for plant anatomy: https://smile.amazon.com/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168
It has a general glossary of terms plus sections devoted to specific parts of plants such fruits and leaves.
And them bring extremely unknown is what interests me, because I got to wonder what research there is to do there that nobody had cared to do because of that.
I found Grasslands and Climate Change by Gibson and Newman. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1316646777/ do you think this would be a good start to dig into the world of grassland? Or can you think of something else?
This is a common myth, but it turns out that cypress knees are probably not pneumatophores. The tissue in cypress knees isn't good for taking in air. See this article, for example.
This paper blew my mind while I was in school.
They were able to identify genes that drive carpel, stamen, petal, and sepal development.
Here's an example of a mutant that has all petals. These are Arabidopsis and not avocados, but it looks somewhat similar to me. I wonder if they're related at all.
That's a shame! If I knew of anyone doing some cool projects, I would certainly ask them if they would be interested. Unfortunately, funding for such things is becoming increasingly rare in Wisconsin. I'll ask around though and see if anyone would be up to it. I think it would be great to host you, if possible.
Have you heard of Patreon. I see you have ~700 subscribers, and with a reach like Bucknell you might have more people buy in to what you're doing.
yeah I've had both and I couldn't say 100% sure w/o actually seeing it, but unless the pictures is misrepresenting the leaves, the fact that they appear glaucous and not at all shiny indicate it's likely Yucca elephantipes. I've seen them being sold at Home Depot and all those type of stores in the past few years.
The great courses has a very good one https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/plant-science-an-introduction-to-botany.html
The great courses has a good course https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/plant-science-an-introduction-to-botany.html you can sometimes get those from the library, and the great courses plus is like a subscription to all of them so you don't have to buy them one at a time
Something that really absorbed me was this book:
Flowering Plant Families of the World https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1554072069/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_5E4Y4J8M0628JPJE1SBP
Understanding how different plants are related to each other really enriched my understanding of botany. I love the clear illustrations.
The classification is a little out of date now. This is a more up-to-date equivalent, though I find the photos less informative than illustrations in this context:
Plants of the World: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Vascular Plant Families https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1842466348/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_6FYW7NMCPHE69BZHS8ZB
Definitely Botany in a Day. Also there are some good keying resources depending on where you live. California has the Jepson's Guide. in the Northwest there's Flora of the Pacific Northwest. I know Maryland has one. I haven't been able to find one for Louisiana. Whichever you get though pair it with a terminology book when using it. (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0964022168/ref=ppx\_yo\_dt\_b\_search\_asin\_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
Look up USB endoscopes for your phone. You can get the camera right up in there with the plant in situ if you desire, watch on your phone screen. One model.
A guide to you country's flora perhaps? Collins publish several in the UK for example this ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Wild-Flowers-photographic-Complete/dp/0007236840 )
Otherwise something like a historical herbal facsimile might be fun, or book that has drawings? Culpeppers Complete Herbal and Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady come to kind. ( All available second hand now I think)
The measurements were kind of confusing to me at first so I did about a teaspoon for a 4” pot and scaled up from there.
Botany for Gardeners. Really covers a lot of the basics of plant anatomy and function you would learn in an intro botany course.
https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Gardeners-3rd-Brian-Capon/dp/160469095X
https://www.amazon.com/dp/039592622X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_XePPFbQZXXBH1
Peterson's North American edible plants. All hand drawn illustrations of plants, loads of info. More about idintification than growing though.
If you want it to be useful if you potentially donate it to a museum eventually, there are several things I'd recommend:
- Better locality information. I can't find "Franklin St. Garden, GP, NY" or even figure out what county it would be in New York. Elevation and habitat would be nice also.
- Collection and accession numbers.
- Author citation for the scientific name
- Larger paper. Standard size herbarium sheets are just under 11x17"
- Only collect fertile specimens and show the portions necessary to ID a plant. Those ferns might be fertile, but I'd never know because the sori are on the underside of the leaflets.
- I hope you aren't planning on putting them in a binder as herbarium sheets should always be handled plant-up and not flipped like book pages.
Buy the Herbarium Handbook and read it. It covers everything in detail.
Get the Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas. It is 50 years old but still the go to book for the region. Technically it doesn't cover areas outside North and South Carolina, but adjacent areas, like the Southern Appalachians in general will have a huge amount of overlap.
https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Vascular-Carolinas-Albert-Radford/dp/0807810878
One other book that has been eternally useful in my work is a plant identification terminology book. It has definitions and pictures for all the various types of leaf, stem, and flower morphologies.
I’m not sure what kind of botanist he is, but it would probably be useful in any field of study.
https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Identification-Terminology-Illustrated-Glossary/dp/0964022168
Jiusion 40 to 1000x Magnification Endoscope, 8 LED USB 2.0 Digital Microscope, Mini Camera with OTG Adapter and Metal Stand, Compatible with Mac Window 7 8 10 Android Linux https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WD843ZM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_GS9JFb0NCXJG9
This is a cool tool you can plug into your laptop and zoom in on small plants or flowers. It saved me in college. So did a waterproof field notebook
"Rodale's 21st-Century Herbal," sized 7.76" x 9.41"?
Any chance it was regional?
McCandless died in 1992, and if you lost it 6 years ago, that would narrow down the search range. I've been trying Google Books with the search string:
edible and medicinal field guide to North American plants maypops McCandless
Try amazon smile to donate to a charity of your choice automatically at no cost to you!
https://smile.amazon.com/Wild-Edible-Medicinal-Plants-Rainforest/dp/0966919203
^^^I'm ^^^a ^^^bot ^^^and ^^^this ^^^action ^^^was ^^^performed ^^^automatically.
Very nice collection, especially of semi-arid plants. Panayoti Kelaidis is there, author of Steppes: Plants and Ecology of the World's Semi-Arid Regions (and quite a bit of other literature on things in the High Plains and nearby areas)!
Look for a PDF of plant physiology and development
It's pretty in depth, but a great source of information.
Well, you could use the scientific name (Papaver somniferum) although you have two types of Papaver, Papaver flore pleno rubrum (double red) and Papaver Eraticum rubrum (wild red) it should facilitate in the research of academic papers.
In terms of history i know in ancient Greece there was a God, Hypno and in his cave grew opium poppies and other hypnotic plants. Which might indicate the Greeks were aware and used the plant for it's properties.
I recommend the book The confessions of an Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey. It goes into detail the forms of consumption where it popularized etc. There are many more ancient stories about poppy flowers it would depend in what you're specifically looking for.
There is a beautiful work for the German lichens; Die Flechten Deutschlands. It is a pretty 'deep' book, as it covers all lichen species in Germany, even the ultra-rare ones. There should also be some 'lighter' books available, but this is the one that came to my mind. Good luck and enjoy!! :)
I don't know. I got it by a teacher of mine, but I've found other book that could work for you, its Specific for South Portugal and friends of mine have use it and say it's really good. It's in English, but it's a little expensive and not as handy as the other one to take on field trips. Anyway I hope it helps you:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Field-Guide-Flowers-Algarve-Guides/dp/1842464973
Harris and Harris is a pretty good place to start.
For my plant anatomy class, we used the textbook, An Introduction to Plant Structure and Development: Plant Anatomy for the Twenty-First Century (2nd Edition) by Charles B. Beck.
I still fondly remember this book and how in-depth it was. This is a great resource, if you're interested in plant structure. It covers everything.
Here's a link. That said, you can find all sorts of resources online. If you have instagram, check out Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't. IIRC he has a link to a Google Drive PACKED with references and books. I have also accumulated a decent amount of botany books that I could probably share, if you're interested.
Run search on Amazon......The have some that will interface with your phone and or computer, now that would be real handy . Here is one like mine that I bought 30 years ago.....https://www.amazon.com/Carson-20x-60x-Microscope-Aspheric-MM-450/dp/B077TLGP58/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=handheld+microscope&qid=1601119971&sr=8-5
Stains are cheap and available. Relatively few chemicals actually require anything special to buy.
The only relevant books I found were
Flora Japonica https://www.amazon.com/dp/1842466127/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_CjjsDbVX9PSVC
Wild Flowers of Japan: A Field Guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/4770018096/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_2kjsDb7QP9XPF
And they both seem pretty old and don't have many reviews...
Ink Inc. Set of 6 Herb Botanical Prints, Unframed, 8x10 inch Matte, Thyme, Mint, Rosemary, Parsley, Sage, Fennel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078WX7LVB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_bRILCbZFK69QX.
Some sellers even sell entire booklets of prints that have perforated pages so you can pull them out for framing.
If youre also interested in the landscape side as well as the plant communities, you may be interested in Natural History of California by Schoenherr .
I have a book called the The Plant Kingdom Compendium which is about 350 pages of etchings of plants. It isn't in colour like the Kohler ones, but they're very detailed, and there are thousands of them, with the common and Latin names of each written in a glossary at the end. There are also appendices listing medicinal herbs and edible plants and the like.
My herbaceous plants prof used this^ book a lot! Great for helping identify common characteristics within families.
This is also a great pictorial field guide for learning botanical terminology: https://www.amazon.com/Botanical-Field-Guide-Symbols-Keywords/dp/0977577147
https://www.amazon.com/RHS-Encyclopedia-Gardening-Christopher-Brickell/dp/1405322276 is a good general manual for the UK. Great for techniques, tools and explaining terminology. If you want a good list of garden plants (mostly cultivars) with pictures and description I would look no further than RHS A-Z Garden Plants. 2 huge volumes.
Go read this book because it gives many suggestions of how to get involved from being a botanist to agriculturist to a computer scientist.
Here is the Amazon.com link, though I found it in my local library: https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Conservation-Why-Matters-Works/dp/160469260X/ref=sr_1_1?
ie=UTF8&qid=1488749675&sr=8-1&keywords=plant+conservation
Plant Conservation: Why it Matters and How it Works by Timothy Walker.
Fellow Minnesotan and Seed Analyst (Plant Biology degree) here!
I recommend having this book on hand for all of your greenhouse adventures: American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation: The Fully Illustrated Plant-by-Plant Manual of Practical Techniques https://www.amazon.com/dp/0789441160/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_F8qQybT9GQCE7
It's full of photos and will provide you with endless practical advice as you're starting planties. I'm so excited for you and your students!
As others have said, it depends on your location. I'm in Illinois and I use Vascular Flora of Illinois by Mohlenbrock Easily the best Key i've come across
I picked up a book a few years ago about the plant and one man's journey with it. It might be helpful for you. Also, I'm certain erowid.org will have heaps of insightful literature for your project.
edit: added link
This is a great book. It took me a long time to read and lots of highlighting and cross-referencing, but I think it is along the line of your question.
https://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-Green-Surprising-History-Intelligence/dp/1610916034
Hey thank you for the resources! plants.jstor.org looks to be closer to what I'm looking for, specifically the ability to search by region. Kew looks great as well, but when I search for a broad term like desert, I only get 25 results. I'd love to find something more in depth in the sense of "Plants of the Savanna" or something.
Here's an example of the kind of book I've been looking at, but I could do with less in depth info and variation, and more "international" or "regional" if that makes sense. Best is to have a small image like this book with the real world plant, the scientific name, and location. I'm a total layman when it comes to horticulture. I work as a 3D environment artist, so I'm just trying to collect useful resources to reference when approaching foliage creation :)
https://www.amazon.com/American-Horticultural-Society-Encyclopedia-Practical/dp/0789489937
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Botany-Gardeners-Botanical-Explained/dp/022609393X
This is a pretty good one to have a reference for all the mystery terms a budding plant lover is going to encounter.
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Farm-Gardeners-Cookbook/dp/0761156690
Yes, its a cookbook, but its also a how to garden book if she's aiming to start growing food. Its got how to garden, when to grow it, and what to do with it once you've grown in!
Follow people who know more than you and ask them, "what's that?". Try to get the dominant things you don't know in every habitat. Write down the names they teach you, and relate those names to photos you take in the field. Learn your plant parts and how to use a good key. Buy this book
If you're going to be an autodidact, I'd recommend the Botany Coloring Book. It will help you interact with the material and get the basics into your head.
Well it sounds to me like you may want to look into horticultural resources instead of botany. Botany is a much more broad field than studying cultivated stuff. However, if you are looking for general plant science then this plant biology book is the introductory text that is recommended at my program.
Like others have said, learning what characteristics plant families have makes plant I.D. so much easier. If this is something you really want to learn, I'd recommend a book like Wendy B. Zomlefer's Guide to Flowering Plants or Practical Plant Identification by James Cullen. Both of those should give you a rundown on common plant family characteristics and help you narrow it down at least to a family, if not a genus. Being able to accurately I.D. plants quickly is mostly practise, though; the more you do it, the easier it gets.
Though, because you don't think it's a native plant, once you have a rough idea of what it is, you can look at ornamental plants that will grow in your zone.
I found Living with Plants an easy read and quite thorough. It seems to be used on the high school level some places.
Check out something like this, I have one and I love it: http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-2-Foot-Start-Light-System/dp/B0006856EQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317661607&sr=8-2ve it: You can use the stand or hang it from the ceiling to give your plants plenty of light.
That's not the way I learned it. Atro is from atrans meaning darkening. Ater means black or nearly black. Just look at the spelling and the correct root is clear.
Botanical Latin is a great reference if you don't have one.
This book is pretty awesome, and it has all the plants you listed with their respective extraction methods and pharmacological data... http://www.amazon.com/Medicinal-Plants-World-Ben-Erik-van/dp/0881926027 I would suggest finding it for cheaper than it is listed here though.
This book is the penultimate reference book.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-RHS-Dictionary-Gardening-Volumes/dp/1561592404
I have a load of gardening books but I've been meaning to get this for a few years. Currently saving up for it.
Buy a small book on plant sexuality and anatomy. Perhaps also a book on basic cultivation will draw your attention to the proccesses going on in the background.
For example how does layering work? Its bacause meristematic cells collect around the part touching the soil to form new roots. Or with micropropagation and plant tissue culture an entire plant can re-grow itself from a small amount of cells.
Edit:
Having looked on amazon I would consider this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Plant-Anatomy-James-D-Mauseth/dp/1932846174/