I am a gardener and botany student looking to update my reference collection with recent books so I have current taxonomy. What are the best recent keys and reference works?
I am not sure if you already know this, but I have found that by the time things get published they are already at least somewhat out of date. I like the angiosperm phylogeny website (http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/), but this does not really go down to genera/species. For me, in the pacific northwest, I just took a taxonomy course and we were still using the 1970's old key by hitchcock and cronquest.
good luck, and if you find any amazing resources, please post them here!
Sorry to shoot down your idea and request for info relating to botanical keys. Such an animal simply doesn't exist. Each geographical area is botanically quite different, and, as such, requires its own keys to identification. The current,but not yet completed, Flora of North America is the closest to describing the flora of most of the states. It's quite expensive, but I suspect that a near-by library or uiversity might have a copy.
