Overview

Field Guide to the Grasses of Oregon and Washington is an illustrated guide to all 365 species, subspecies, and varieties of grasses—both native and introduced—that grow wild in Oregon and Washington. It also has broad applicability in neighboring states and provinces. Grasses are important functional components in a variety of ecosystems and are highly valued for habitat restoration in ecosystems ranging from wetlands to deserts, and from sea level to alpine. They are important weeds and are also cultivated as ornamental plants.    This guide covers the entire spectrum from weedy invaders to rare native species. Identifying grasses can be challenging; the grass family Poaceae is one of the most diverse plant families in the region, and differences between species are sometimes barely perceptible. This guide provides identification keys, species descriptions, photographs of each species (both in the field and through a microscope), habitats, and range maps. Users will especially appreciate the macrophotography illuminating distinguishing but hard-to-see features.    Biologists, land managers, and botanists, as well as plant professionals, home gardeners, and amateur plant enthusiasts will find this guide an indispensable reference for identifying all the grasses they encounter in the diverse habitats of Oregon and Washington.

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9780870719592

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Cindy Talbott Roché earned a PhD from the University of Idaho in Plant Science. She has lived and worked in both Washington and Oregon; her field experience includes agency employment and consulting work with native and weedy grasses.  From her background in writing and editing natural resource publications as well as illustrating grasses for the Flora of North America, she brings a patient attention to detail to the field guide illustrations and text.   Richard E. Brainerd holds an MS from Oregon State University. He has been a botanical consultant in the Pacific Northwest for over 25 years, conducting rare plant surveys, wetland delineations, natural resource inventories, and plant taxonomic research. His strengths combine taxonomic expertise with field experience, which enabled him to tackle difficult groups for the field guide, for example, Bromus. Barbara L. Wilson holds a PhD from Oregon State University, where she studied the taxonomy of Festuca. She founded the Carex Working Group and has taught sedge and grass identification workshops for many years and brings a strong background in grass taxonomy to this project. She and Otting have published several new species of grasses. The three members of the former Carex Working Group (Wilson, Brainerd, Otting) collaborated on the keys in this book.   Nick Otting has an MS from Oregon State University. He spends the field seasons studying the flora of the shrub-steppe and the mountains east of the Cascades.  He has dedicated recent off-seasons to aggressively editing and testing grass identification keys with a view towards making grasses ever more accessible for students, and of course, towards opening the doors of this—to him--high art and practice of grass identification.    Robert C. Korfhage received his MS from Washington State University in Range and Wildlife Ecology. He enjoyed a long career with the Bureau of Land Management as wildlife biologist and natural resource manager. Using his passion for photography, he captured many of the images and edited all of the photos for the field guide.

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