Bookstore

With clarity and depth of knowledge, Naturalist’s Austin: A Guide to the Plants and Animals of Central Texas provides a tour that includes nearly 700 species of plants and animals native to the region. The book opens with a natural history overview underscores the importance of a strong environmental ethic for ensuring the ability of naturally occurring species to thrive within an urban environment—even one exhibiting the type of explosive growth found in Austin.

Highlighting features of the area’s natural processes (migration, wildfire, caves, aquifers, and others), Weber and Weber present lavishly illustrated accounts of both common and unique plant and animal species, with selected exotics included, that may be found in Austin and the surrounding areas. Each section in the species accounts opens with an informative overview, and the individual accounts discuss species status, seasonality, descriptions, habitat, and “fun facts” related to interesting behaviors or adaptations.

With vivid photographs throughout, this colorful and informative guide is sure to be a favorite of Texas nature lovers. Naturalist’s Austin provides an authoritative and enjoyable resource for the greater appreciation and better stewardship of our natural resources.

This middle grade edition of the groundbreaking bestseller by Doug Tallamy will inspire kids to use their backyard to help save the planet.

In Nature’s Best Hope (Young Readers’ Edition), Tallamy empowers kids to use their own yards to help combat the negative effects of climate change. He does so by breaking down complex concepts into simple terms and real-world examples that kids can easily grasp. Black and white photographs help further clarify concepts. In addition to sharing the science, Tallamy encourages kids to take direct action. Some of these ideas include planting an oak tree at home. If that’s too large of a task, he suggests they can plant asters—a beautiful flower whose pollen bees use to feed their young.

By helping the next generation see that they have power and agency over our collective future, this empowering book will drive home the positive point that kids are truly nature’s best hope.

This book shows us how our landscape style of neat yards and gardens has devastated suburban ecology, wiping out entire communities of plants and animals by stripping bare their habitats and destroying their food supplies. When Stein realized what her intensive efforts at making a traditional garden had done, she set out to “ungarden.” Her book interweaves an account of her efforts with an explanation of the ecology of gardens. Noah’s Garden has become the bible of the new environmental gardening movement, and the author is one of its most popular spokespersons.

This book provides information on accurate identification and effective control of the 33 nonnative plants and groups that are currently invading the forests of the 13 Southern States, showing both growing and dormant season traits. It lists other nonnative plants of growing concern, control strategies, and selective herbicide application procedures. Recommendations for preventing and managing invasions on a specific site include maintaining forest vigor with minimal disturbance, constant surveillance and treatment of new unwanted arrivals, and finally rehabilitation following eradication.

This field guide and desk reference, which won the 2016 Native Plant Society of Texas Carroll Abbott Memorial Award for the first edition, has been updated to include 1703 photos (406 more than the first edition) and 41 drawings of 427 species from Gainesville to the Hill Country of Texas. Full color illustrations show overall views and close-ups of leaves and flowers. Written, bullet-point details highlight features for field identification, soil types of where to find the plant, bloom times, common name(s), scientific name(s), and native or non-native status.

Honey bees get all the press, but the fascinating story of North America’s native bees—endangered species essential to our ecosystems and food supplies—is just as crucial. Through interviews with farmers, gardeners, scientists, and bee experts, Our Native Bees explores the importance of native bees and focuses on why they play a key role in gardening and agriculture. The people and stories are compelling: Paige Embry goes on a bee hunt with the world expert on the likely extinct Franklin’s bumble bee, raises blue orchard bees in her refrigerator, and learns about an organization that turns the out-of-play areas in golf courses into pollinator habitats. Our Native Bees is a fascinating, must-read for fans of natural history and science and anyone curious about bees.

Over time, with industrialization and urban sprawl, we have driven nature out of our neighborhoods and cities. But we can invite it back by designing landscapes that look and function more like they do in the wild: robust, diverse, and visually harmonious. This book is an inspiring call to action dedicated to the idea of a new nature—a hybrid of both the wild and the cultivated—that can flourish in our cities and suburbs. This is both a post-wild manifesto and practical guide that describes how to incorporate and layer plants into plant communities to create an environment that is reflective of natural systems and thrives within our built world.

This book provides an accessible and reliable identification guide to all of the plants, excluding grasses, of the region—some 823 species. In clear, nontechnical language, Alfred Richardson gives a brief description of each species, along with its range, habitat, and general blooming time. Over two hundred superb color photographs offer quick and easy field identification, while line drawings illustrate notable characteristics of the plants.

This volume expands and updates Alfred Richardson’s previous book, Plants of Southernmost Texas, published in 1990 by the Gorgas Science Foundation. It will be an essential field guide for everyone interested in South Texas flora, from winter visitors and Valley residents to professional botanists.

For everyone who studies or simply enjoys the impressive variety of wild plants that grow in the counties of Texas’ coastal bend, here is an authoritative, user-friendly book that will make an excellent reference.

This is is the first comprehensive book to illustrate the specific relationships between native pollinators and native plants. Organized by plant communities, the book profiles over 65 perennial native plants of the Midwest, Great Lakes region, Northeast and southern Canada and the pollinators, beneficial insects and flower visitors the plants attract.

With its easy-to-use format, the book provides the reader with information on how to attract, plant for and identify pollinators with native plants. Beautifully designed and illustrated with over 1600 photos of plants and insects, the book includes information on pollination, types of pollinators and beneficial insects, pollinator habitat and conservation as well as pollinator landscape plans.

This is an important book for gardeners, students, native plant enthusiasts, landscape restoration professionals, small fruit and vegetable growers and farmers who are interested in attracting, identifying, supporting or planting for pollinators.

In its most extensive prime, the Texas Blackland Prairie formed a twelve-million-acre grassy swath across the state from near San Antonio north to the Red River. Perhaps less than one tenth of one percent of this vast prairie remains—small patches tucked away here and there, once serving as hay meadows or sprouting from rock too stony to plow.

Matt White’s connections with both prairie plants and prairie people are evident in the stories of discovery and inspiration he tells as he tracks the ever dwindling parcels of tallgrass prairie in northeast Texas. In his search, he stumbles upon some unexpected fragments of virgin land, as well as some remarkable tales of both destruction and stewardship.

Helping us understand what a prairie is and how to appreciate its beauty and importance, White also increases our awareness of prairies, past and present, so that we might champion their survival in whatever small plots remain.

This approachable introduction to prairies is an accessible and inspirational guide to garden design for those wanting sustainable, beautiful, and functional landscapes.

This guide focuses on the native plants found in the Rolling Plains, Cross Timbers and Prairies, Blackland Prairie, and Post Oak Savannah vegetational areas of Texas.

The book features 1,450 photos covering 324 plants, including 160 forbs (wildflowers), 59 grasses, and 105 woody plants. Each plant is described with an emphasis on leaves, flowers, fruits, and other details to aid in identification. Linex provides valuable insights into the value of these plants for different species of livestock and wildlife. Understanding their significance is crucial for successful land management. Additionally, management tips are offered to help maintain or enhance the presence of these plants on your property.

The book is arranged alphabetically by plant family, then by genus, and finally by species within each genus. This grouping facilitates easier comparison and identification. While the focus is on North Central Texas, the book’s content is relevant to landowners, students, and wildflower enthusiasts across the middle half of Texas and southern Oklahoma due to regional overlap among many of these plants.

Since 1987, when Texas Parks and Wildlife Department botanists published their first in-house summary of Texas’ threatened plants, more than 225 species have been identified and described as endangered, imperiled, or declining. Because most of these plants are too rare to be mentioned, much less pictured, in standard field guides, only a handful of botanists have known what these plants or their habitats look like.

Complete with photographs, line drawings, and county maps, this book describes the officially listed, candidate, and species-of-concern plants in Texas. Individual accounts include information on distribution, habitat, physical description, flowering time, federal and state status, similar species, and published references. The authors also provide brief introductory chapters on the state’s vegetation regions; the history of plant conservation in Texas; federal, state, and other ranking methods; threats to native plants; recovery methods; and reporting guidelines.

With the growing recognition that native plants support wildlife, conserve water, promote biodiversity, and exemplify our natural heritage, we must also recognize the need for greater understanding of endangered plants, the threats to their existence, and the importance of their survival. Rare Plants of Texas is highly recommended for professional botanists and advanced researchers, conservationists, students, range managers, and others concerned with preserving the ecosystems of Texas and the Southwest.

In this intriguing book, Matt Warnock Turner explores the little-known facts—be they archaeological, historical, material, medicinal, culinary, or cultural—behind our familiar botanical landscape. In sixty-five entries that cover over eighty of our most common native plants from trees, shrubs, and wildflowers to grasses, cacti, vines, and aquatics, he traces our vast array of connections with plants. Turner looks at how people have used plants for food, shelter, medicine, and economic subsistence; how plants have figured in the historical record and in Texas folklore; how plants nourish wildlife; and how some plants have unusual ecological or biological characteristics. Illustrated with over one hundred color photos and organized for easy reference, Remarkable Plants of Texas can function as a guide to individual species as well as an enjoyable natural history of our most fascinating native plants.

This book is a timely manifesto by authors Sally Wasowski and Andy Wasowski. In 2002, during the severe drought in the western United States, gardeners and landscapers turned to hardy native plants as replacements for thirsty exotics. This shift toward xeriscaping—gardening with less water—emerged as a dominant trend. The book advocates for a more naturalistic approach, working in harmony with Mother Nature rather than against her. Practical advice and calls to action encourage readers to view gardening through a fresh perspective.

Historical book with painting of the many roadside flowers in Texas.

The first fully illustrated flora for any region of Texas or adjacent states. It is the most comprehensive guide to a large portion of the diverse plant life of Texas, and covers all the native and naturalized vascular plants known to occur in North Central Texas, an area about the size of Kentucky. The book presents information on the plant life of the region to meet the needs of students, teachers, wildflower enthusiasts, gardeners, ranchers, farmers, naturalists, conservationists, environmental consultants, researchers, and the general public. Of particular importance for non-botanists are the line drawing illustrations, which are provided for all species. In addition, there are 174 color photographs. The flora includes 2,223 species, or nearly half-known for the entire state of Texas.

The inviting layout, vegetation maps, and extensive introductory materials on the vegetation, geology, soils, climate, and presettlement and early settlement conditions make the book useful to a wide audience. Also of general interest are a number of appendices on topics such as botanically related internet addresses, conservation organizations, native plants to use as ornamentals, phylogeny, and endemic species. The taxonomic treatments include family and generic synopsis keys and descriptions, derivations of scientific names, characters helpful for the field recognition of plant families, notes on toxic/poisonous and useful plants, and references to supporting literature. There is a literature cited section with nearly 3,000 references.

This comprehensive guide, illustrated with more than 140 stunning color photographs, tells you all you need to know to attract butterflies to your yard, identify them, and understand their behavior. The Stokes Butterfly Book covers everything from the life stage of a butterfly to how to design a garden that will attract a multitude of different species.

With this comprehensive, beautifully illustrated guide, you’ll find it easy to attract these tiny, jewel-like birds to your own yard. The Stokes Hummingbird Book provides all the information you need to bring hummingbirds up close, identify them, and understand their fascinating and varied behavior.

This is your complete guide for identifying and organically controlling all of the most common Texas insects. Drawing on years of practical experience and research, organic gardening experts Howard Garrett and Malcolm Beck give detailed instructions on how to identify, understand the life cycle of, and control or protect Texas insects, mites, snails, slugs, nematodes, and other critters. They also include striking color photos and black-and-white drawings to help you identify each bug. Garrett and Beck highlight the many useful roles that bugs play in nature and offer proven organic remedies for infestations of pest insects.