Beginner Books
Wildflowers of California: A Month-by-Month Guide
by Laird Blackwell
UC Press, 2012 paperback
Plants of Northern California: A Field Guide to Plants West of the Sierra Nevada
by Eva Bagley
Falcon Guides, 2023 Second Edition paperback
California Plants: A Guide to Our Iconic Flora
by Matt Ritter
Pacific Street Publishing, 2018 paperback
Wildflowers of Point Reyes National Seashore
Edited by Kristin Jakob, Eva Buxton and Vernon Smith
CNPS Marin Chapter, 2022 booklet
Laws Pocket Guide Box Set
By John Muir Laws
Heyday Press, 2014
By Michael G. Barbour, Julie M. Evens, Todd Keeler-Wolf, John O. Sawyer
CNPS 2009
Intermediate Books
Plants of the San Francisco Bay Region: Mendocino to Monterey
by Linda H. Beidleman and Eugene N. Kozloff
UC Press, 2014 Third Edition paperback
Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification
by Thomas Elpel
HOPS Press, 2013 Sixth edition paperback
California Natural History Guides
An extensive set of California environmental education books and field guides from UC Press. They cover a wide array of plant communities, plant species, insects, birds and local geography. Packed with photographs and illustrations and compact enough to take on the trail.
Advanced Books
Marin Flora
The new edition of John Thomas Howell’s classic 1949 Marin Flora is co-authored by Wilma Follette, Catherine Best, and Frank Almeda, Senior Curator of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, and is a joint project of the Marin Chapter of the CNPS and the California Academy of Sciences.
Download the 2012 Supplement to this Flora
The Jepson Manual, Vascular Plants of California, Second Edition
Definitive guide to the vascular plants found in California.
CNPS Online Store Books
The CNPS Online Store offers a large number of books on native plants at all levels.