Wildflowers of the Western Plains
Based on the book of the same title by Zoe Merriman Kirkpatrick, Wildflowers of the Western Plains is a field guide to wildflowers found in on the plains from western Texas and eastern New Mexico, though Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, and up into Canada. This guide includes the plant descriptions and photos (all by the author) from the book.
Descriptions for each plant include leaf and flower features for identification, latin and common names for the plant, blooming period, and plant communities in which the plant is found. One touch takes you to the full-sized photos for the plant, or the next or previous plant. Botanical terms are linked to the Glossary, which also includes illustrations of plant anatomical features.
The app features nearly 250 photos for 186 species of flowering plants. You can scroll through full-sized photos by swiping from left to right, and get detailed information on the plant currently being displayed.
A Search menu lets you find plants based on several criteria:
-Plant type
-Habitat
-Blooming period--including what's blooming now.
-Any text string appearing in the plant name or description.
To quickly identify a plant, you can browse thumbnails organized by photo type (flower, seed/fruit, or foliage), flower color, and family. Buttons quickly allow you to jump to the group of photos you’re interested in.
This thumbnail view is used in many parts of the application--whether to browse all photos, as you might with a guidebook at home, or when viewing search results, or only those plants in a particular family or genus.
Search results can be viewed as a list of plants, or in the thumbnail browser. You can have a good idea of the plants you’ll see in bloom on a hike if you search for plants that are blooming now, and the plant community you’ll be hiking in.
Since amateurs and professionals alike can often make a good guess at the family of an unknown plant, you can also browse plant photos and descriptions by family.
For quickly looking up a species, genus, or family by name, there's an alphabetic index with common and scientific names for all species and families.
Wildflowers of the Western Plains includes built-in help and a glossary that is accessible from the main screen and from each plant description page.
Available on the iPhone App Store. Wildflowers of the Western Plains was developed by Earthrover Software in conjunction with Matthew T. Ryan, with photos and text by Zoe Merriman Kirkpatrick. If you’re an author or photographer and would like to see your guide on the iPhone or iPod touch, contact us at c31337@gmail.com.
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Coverage map - note that mountainous regions within the green area are not included in this guide.
