The Utah State University Press website is sharing this free online textbook with their students and students all over the world. It is also a great gardening guide for anyone living in the Intermountain West region. Water Wise: Native Plants for Intermountain Landscapes covers botanical species native to the Intermountain West including cacti, forbs, grasses, trees and shrubs. It also includes information on a number of species that “can be used in landscaping to conserve water, reflect and preserve the region’s landscape character, and help protect its ecological integrity.” The Intermountain West is identified as the mountains, basins and plateaus lying between the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada on the west and the Rocky Mountains on the east.
This textbook was written by Wendy Mee, Jared Barnes, Roger Kjelgren, Richard Sutton, Teresa Cerny and Craig Johnson. A master’s degree thesis written by Richard Sutton (Associate Professor, Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) in 1974 is the basis for this book. His Landscape Plants from Utah’s Mountains was popular, in part, because it shared ideas on growing high elevation woody plants in urban landscapes.
Each plant description includes information about its appearance, natural habitat, landscape use and some additional general comments. The entire text is heavily illustrated with full-color pictures.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Adaptations of Intermountain Plants
- Plant Selection Considerations
- Maintenance of Native Landscapes Intermountain West Plant Communities
- Subalpine
- Montane
- Foothills
- Lowland Desert
- Riparian
- Interpretation of Data Sheets
- Sources
- Woody Plants
- Forbs
- Grasses
- Cacti
- Appendix: Table of Species and Communities
By the way, in case you are wondering like I was; a forb is a herbaceous flowering plant that is not a graminoid (grasses, sedges and rushes). The term is used in biology and in vegetation ecology, especially in relation to grasslands and understory.
View this Free Online Material at the source:
Water Wise: Native Plants for Intermountain Landscapes
