Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Highveld

Title: Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Highveld
Author: Braam van Wyk; Sasa Malan
Publisher: Struik Publishers
2nd edition. Cape Town, South Africa 1998
ISBN 9781868720583 /ISBN 978-1-86872-058-3
Softcover, 15 x 21 cm, 352 pages, throughout (900) colour photos

Description: Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Highveld

More than 3500 wild flower species inhabit South Africa's Highveld region. Such profuse natural diversity often goes unnoticed in a part of the country more readily associated with financial wealth, urban landscapes and cultivated fields. Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Highveld, originally published as Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Witwatersrand & Pretoria Region, uncovers many of these hidden treasures in a practical and accessible way.This new edition provides the most up-to-date scientific names. It also redefines with greater accuracy the area in which the guide is applicable, namely a core area which covers the transition zone between grasslands and bushveld, a surrounding area in which the flowers are very well represented and a peripheral region in which the book will also be useful. The more than 900 species described in this guide are grouped by floral colour into six groups, making flower colour the first clue to a plant's identity. Within these groups, species are arranged alphabetically according to families. Full colour photographs of each flower described have been carefully selected to show the distinctive features of the plant, and are arranged into more than 130 plates for easy comparison. Leaf drawings accompany most of the descriptions to further aid identification. A section on common grasses concludes the book.

Content: Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of the Highveld

Acknowledgements
Preface to the second edition
Preface to the first edition
Area covered by the field guide
Introduction
Evolution of the flowering plants
Flowers and their function
Classification of plants
The scientific names of plants
Plant families and their names
Plant identification made easier
The flora of the field guide area
Vegetation and its classification
Vegetation of the field guide area
How to use this guide
Family descriptions
White or whitish flowers
Yellow or cream flowers
Pink to red or red-purple flowers
Blue or blue-purple flowers
Orange to brown or red-brown flowers
Green or greenish flowers
The grasses
Glossary
Selected references and further reading
Index to scientific names
Index to English and Afrikaans common names