The International Montessori Council

Priscilla Spears: A Tour of the Flowering Plants published by Missouri Botanical Garden Press.

No elementary or middle school guide should be without this beautiful, up-to-date book.  It's a rich resource not only for the children, but also for the adults who work with them.  It's my very favorite plant book, and I have many plant books.  It was well worth paying the old price, so if it's now less expensive, there truly is no reason to wait!

One of the many things that make this book special is the photographs of plant species.  No other survey book I know of takes the same kind of care with its photographs as this book does.  Most books have photographs that seem to have been taken by photographers who know little or nothing about botany.  So you get a bunch of pictures of green leafy things that are pretty hard to tell from all the other green leafy things.  In Priscilla's book the photographs are carefully taken so that it is possible to actually see the defining botanical characters (features) of the species.  If having X sepals, Y leaf attachment and Z stamens is key to identifying the plant, you'll be able to see all those things in Priscilla's photos.  Since none of us can hope to have actual classroom specimens of even a significant fraction of the flowering plants, having this kind of photograph of each is invaluable.

John Snyder : Austin Montessori School

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