Here are some links to pages that I use to help identify flowers and critters, etc. I’m adding sites as I come across them, but if you have a recommendation please let me know via my Contact page.
- Calflora: Great site for California flowers. A very useful tool is the What Grows Here feature, that you will find on the left menu. Note that when you are looking at a record for an individual flower there is a link to the listing in the Jepson eFlora website at the bottom of the page.
- Jepson eFlora: The definitive key for California plants
- Wildflower Search: A useful site for ID’ing wildflowers in the US. You can narrow down the list of plants by characteristic, location, and so forth
- Oregon Flora Project
- Pacific Northwest Wildflowers: Wonderful wildflower photographs, with range information, for Washington, Oregon and Northern California
- Wildflowers, Ferns, & Trees of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona & Utah
- Soilweb: An amazing tool from UC Davis that you can use to determine what type of soil is found at a particular location. Often this is important to determine what species of flowers to expect at a site.
- BugGuide: Great site for ID’ing insects in the United States. I use the “ID Request” tab to submit photos of insects, and the speed of response is amazing.
- California Herps: A useful website for ID’ing snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs and salamanders in California
- The Fungi of California: Harder to key fungi, you generally need info that is harder to come by. This is a “simple key” that works well
- Mushroom Expert
- Art Shapiro’s Butterfly Site: Great for butterflies in north/central California
- Natural History Wanderings: A great blog for various “natural history” news, as well as information on places to hike (mostly California), and when
- Bay Nature Magazine: While it isn’t a “wildflower” reference site, this is the only magazine that I subscribe to these days. It is a WONDERFUL reference full of great informational articles.