Actaully, that's why I bought "Field Guide to Medicinal Plants: Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides)" I was trying to identify a woody plant with fern like leaves, but was definately not a fern (no sporangium). But it also was not in flower and almost every flowering plant guide uses the flower color as the first key item. Arrrgggg!!!!

Anyway, the above guide helped me identify Sweetfern, a flowering plant whose crushed leaves and stems have an anticeptic odor akin to cinnamon but more pungent. It's a fair book but is definately not a medicinal guide, which it plainly states, as it seems that almost every plant cures almost every ailment!!! <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

I guess I'll just have to compile that book list ASAP. Although I must warn that it's not all inclusive. I have yet to find the definative flowering plant book and bird book. No flames please as I know that bird guides are a very personal and emotional issue among the Audibon types. My observation is based upon my needs for getting an easy to use reference for young scouts ages 11 to "ol' grey beards." Most bird books require a bit of knowledge. I think Peterson's is fairly good at that, but I also distrubute a document called the Peterson Perspective, a 40 page tutorial on how to ID birds. It's good but most young boys don't care enough to wade through 40 pages just so they can begin to learn birds.

BTW, I do have a CD with html and pdf files that I created for our troop for summer camp last year with a bunch of different references for the eco/con merit badges. It's not complete and it's geared towards the environment in lower penninsula Michigan (Owasippe Scout Reservation near Whitehall, MI). But much of it can also apply to the lower great lakes area (Indiana, Illinois & lower Wisconsin). I can burn a copy or two for interested folks, but it may take me a while to get to it as I'm running low on blanks and my home PC works only part of the time (A new PC is on my X-mass list).