Electronic Field Guide to the Plants of Popular Recreation Sites in Arizona's Donoran Desert

Abstract

Field guides occupy the intersection of plants and people. Improving the user's understanding of nature, plant field guides have the potential of increasing the satisfaction of their outdoor experience. A more satisfied field guide user is more likely to take action to preserve places where native plants grow. Unfortunately, print field guides are either too technical or incomplete, resulting in frustration rather than satisfaction. Most offer no systematic method where a user may identify an unknown plant based on observable characteristics, relying instead on randomly browsing through a series of illustrations in the hope that a static photo or drawing will resemble the plant in question. Picture-book taxonomy is unreliable when the geographic area under consideration is large and the vegetation diverse. Arizona, especially its Sonoran Desert is such an environment, where sporadic precipitation fosters the unreliable occurrence of annuals and species with unusual growth forms, which may not be included in field guides to the Southwest, West, or North America. Print field guides, which include all known plants to small, isolated geographic areas such as popular parks is simply not cost effective. Electronic field guides are not constrained by these economic limitations and they offer a superior method of identifying plants. With an eye to the future where dynamic, interactive features become the norm for high tech users packing portable electronic devices over hill and dale, this article introduces a novel field guide to plants using standard spreadsheet software. Based on floras produced by graduate students and others for 12 popular recreation sites near large population centers, this E-guide offers a fast, reliable, non-technical tool for large numbers of outdoor enthusiasts to identify plants in areas they already visit and enjoy.