Identifying Plants?

Question

I need to identify some Rocky Mountain plants in Utah, and I have a field guide, but it doesn't have all the plants that I have collected. Does anyone know of an online guide I could use?

Answer 1

I would suggest to try a plant forum

Or even better... Look for Utah DNR (Department of Natural Resources) site...

FDA plant files... (Very extensive...But, honestly boring to look through...LoL)

Utah specific preservation of native plants...

I am sure you will do well with these...

Answer 2

Try some of these sites

http://gardeninglaunchpad.com/WF.html

http://www.conps.org/links.html

Utah wildflowers

http://www.xmission.com/%7Enelsonb/wildf...

http://www.wasatchaudubon.org/flowers/

http://www.swcoloradowildflowers.com/Pin...

http://www.hort.usu.edu/PlantGuide/index...

http://www.utahschoice.org/utahs-choice-...

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/rdsd...

Utah native plant society

http://www.unps.org/index.html

Utah rare plant guide

http://www.utahrareplants.org/rpg_acknow...

Answer 3

Try A Utah Flora, by Welsh, Atwood, Goodrich, and Higgins.  Since you are in Utah, you can find it at a library.  Also consider calling a nearby college to see if one of their botanists will help you.

Answer 4

In addition to all the other good advice, consider that the plants you collected might be weeds -- especially if you're collecting near pastures, roads or trails or other disturbed ground.  Weeds rarely make the popular field guides -- in fact, they rarely are collected for herbarium specimens.

Here's a few possibilities:

http://extension.usu.edu/weedweb/

http://www.utahweed.org/weeds.htm

http://www.swcoloradowildflowers.com/nox...

http://npdc.usda.gov/technical/plantid_w...

If your plants are only vegetative (no flowers or fruit), you're probably going to have a tough time identifying them.