Fern Finder: A Guide to Native Ferns of Central and Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada (Nature Study Guides)

Takes a little practice but once you get the hang of it it's a lot of fun following the key. It's basically a dichotomous key. It doesn't have photos or more educational descriptions, and isn't as useful if you just want to learn about ferns. Identifying ferns is the main thing and it's great at that but if you want to know more about the particular fern you have to look it up yourself. That's no big deal as this is actually pocket sized and easy to bring on a walk - very practical.

Great explanations of fern anatomy/ reproduction!

Purchased for my daughter along with the flower and fern guides. She loves to head outdoors to identify everything in site. Although she says the sketches are a bit difficult to match to the 'real thing', she has an open mind and I believe will adjust. How can you go wrong at this awesome price.

Very well laid out with lots of helpful information.

I spent many years working as a naturalist. In that time I acquired an entire library of resources, from field guides to complete regional flora. But it was this tiny, pocket-sized guide that I found to be the greatest help in identifying ferns. This small booklet combines the best features of a dichotomous key with simple illustrations of the critical characteristics. The result is a field-friendly tool that plays less like an academic exercise and more like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story--and it has yet to steer me wrong.

I am a Biology teacher, and these guides are fantastic. They are simple enough for students and detailed enough for accurate identification. I use them for Taxonomy workshops, Biodiversity, and dichotomous key classroom lessons. I bought ten which is enough for a class set! This and the Tree id book are great for classroom use!

I'm pretty confident with identifying trees and wildflowers, even with a lot of the understory plants we encounter but I draw a blank when it comes to ferns (the best I can do is `that's a fern!'). To increase my fern identifying skills I purchased the Fern Finder before we left for summer camp this year. The Fern Finder is one of a series of books published by Nature Study Guild Publishers that uses a `dichotomous key' leading the reader through a number of steps to identifying a specific plant. I am an impatient student and I use most nature guides incorrectly by just flipping through the pictures until I find something close. The Fern finder made me slow down a bit and first learn the anatomy of ferns (important to being able to identifying them). By the end of the week (snatching an hour here and there from our otherwise busy schedule) I had learned to identify half a dozen different ferns, and have a pretty solid basis for identifying others. I recommend the Fern Finder and the other guides offered by the Nature Study Guild.

standard guide

Insightful, accurate, and portable sized reference book for my mom to take on her nature walks and use for field studying. She loves it.

Not only is the price right, but this small, pocket sized guide to the ferns is perfect for identifying most ferns in northeastern North America. It's best features are: 1. it is truly pocket sized - you can take it anywhere; 2. the drawings are clear and unambiguous; 3. the dichotomous key is well laid out - allowing you to quickly determine "does it look like this? or like that?" as you work your way through all the possible combinations; 4. (and perhaps the best), each fern has a range map AND an easy to interpret symbol about the ecology of the plant (open field, woods, streambank, etc.) AND an indication of the height of the fern, keys that are often critical for differentiating ferns, but which often require detective work to find in other fern guides. Between this and my Peterson Field Guide to Ferns, Second Edition: Northeastern and Central North America , no fern will go unidentified. As a first field guide to the ferns, you couldn't do better. But even if you are reasonably comfortable identifying ferns, this little book would be a welcome addition to your collection. I highly recommend it.

We gave this as a gift to our dad who loves hiking and is always identifying plants. We love that it’s small and easy to bring on our adventures.

This is a fantastic idea, its a great way to visually (and briefly) represent the identification process in a "choose your own adventure" style key.

Great pocket guide.