Ferns to Know and Grow

Great reviews and nice cover picture, but inside not a single color picture of any of the ferns. The pictures were black and white and look like copy of a copy. My favorite ferns were not discussed at any useful length. Disappointed. I expected a good quality review of ferns with great pictures and diagrams. Now I’ll have to find another author; this one is not sufficient and definitely not a pleasure to lead through.

Owned it before A very good, user friendly work book about ferns

A great common fern guide

Very technical

Foster's book delivers what it advertises. It is both an old-fashioned identification book and resource for shade and woodland gardeners. The beginning of the book covers necessary information about biology, natural history, cultivation, and propagation of ferns. The rest of the book is a collection of detailed species descriptions with line drawings accompanying each. The book concludes with a comprehensive chart covering the highlights of all species covered in the book.This book loses a star due to the lack of photos in the identification section. There are black and white photos in the early sections of the book, but the species descriptions have only line drawings. This gives the book the feel of a traditional botanist's identification guide, but photos would increased the utility of the ID section.