Subject: Calif. Flora - Jepson or Munz?

From: [email-masked]
Date: 15 Jun 95 08:51:22 PST

Might someone provide an opinion on the comparison of Willis Linn Jepson's
"The Jepson Manual:  Higher plants of California" (Berkeley: Univ. of
California Press, 1993) and Philip A. Munz's "A California Flora"  (Date
unknown)?

Both appear to be comprehensive treatments of native California flora.
What are the differences and strong points of each?

Thanks very much in advance.

George Goldsmith

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From: [email-masked] (Nancy Harrison)
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 06:08:45

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Ron Nixon) writes:
>From: [email-masked] (Ron Nixon)
>Subject: Re: Calif. Flora - Jepson or Munz?
>Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 20:03:57 GMT

>In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] writes:
>|> Might someone provide an opinion on the comparison of Willis Linn Jepson's
>|> "The Jepson Manual:  Higher plants of California" (Berkeley: Univ. of
>|> California Press, 1993) and Philip A. Munz's "A California Flora"  (Date
>|> unknown)?
>|> 
>|> Both appear to be comprehensive treatments of native California flora.
>|> What are the differences and strong points of each?
>|> 
>|> Thanks very much in advance.
>|> 
>|> George Goldsmith
>Both Jepson and Munz are excellent floras of California.  The main
>differences that I have seen are.  Munz uses somewhat more technical
>terminology, Jepson being designed to be usefull for the non-botanist.
>Jepson includes wonderfull sketches of all genera while Munz only
>includes selected sketches of genera.  The Jepson flora is quite a bit more 
>recent of a work and includes many name changes, Munz's Southern
>California Flora being compiled in 1974 and "A California Flora" in
>maybe 1959.  For the most part the dichotomous key in Jepson requires
>a bit more wading through to get to species.  Hope this helps.
>                                Ron

I find that I use both.  I trained myself in botany with Munz, doing field 
work in Sonoma Co. When Jepson came out, I started using it, but found that I 
was too "set in my ways" to give up Munz!  One problem with Jepson is:  hard 
to find synonyms when plant names were changed (and a whole lot have been!) 
Another problem:  the distribution codes are hard to figure out; I liked the 
more verbose system in Munz for listing distributions; these are often of 
primary importance when using a key.  You look there first, and if the plant 
grows only in the Mojave Desert and you are in Humboldt Co, you can eliminate 
right away!  Also note:  there are some errors in Jepson that are in the 
process of being corrected now, for a "supplement" or whatever to be published 
soon.  -Nan in Calif

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From: [email-masked] (Ron Nixon)
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 20:03:57 GMT

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From: [email-masked] (Ron Nixon)
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1995 20:03:57 GMT