News Spring 2018!
Montana Plant Life now provides online access to the entire Collection of 2,063 species of Montana plants, classified in 176 plant families, including trees, spore plants, grasses, rare plants etc., with over 9,000 images and a 6+ million character information database.
See full list of features!
Montana Plant Life is created with the purpose to provide an extensive and user-friendly resource about Montana\"s plants. The intent is to provide high-quality images, identification, and in-depth information in one place, so that anybody, without prior botanical knowledge, can learn about Montana\"s wildflowers and other plants in a most rewarding way.
This web site presents a wide variety of Montana wildflowers and other plants growing in the wilds of Montana. The flora of Montana is very diverse and contains many species which range extends all the way from the Pacific Northwest region to as far as the Great Plains.
The site currently features 250 species in 42 plant families, with over 1,000 images, and an information database with close to 1 million characters.
Each presented species has a page with pictures and full description and, if applicable, information about edibility, medicinal and poisonous properties.
The site includes
edible plants, medicinal plants and poisonous plants with sub-categories for edible roots, poisonous berries etc. Choices can also be made for displaying introduced vs. native plants and weeds. On the Plant Index menu there are indexes for English and Scientific names, plus all presented species ordered after families. There are also lists for plant types, flowering month, habitat etc., for a total of
41 different indexes.
The
plant search engine from the title bar above can be used to search the entire plant database for any words or phrases, for example "lily," "arthritis," "Lewisia," "cancer" etc. If a plant name is not found in the indexes, it can often be found from a search instead.
Each presented plant family has its own page with a description of its unique characteristics plus a
plant identification guide with pictures, short descriptions and links to the species that belong to it.
The menu on the title bar above is the main navigation of the site. On the plant identification page, flower color, number of petals, leaf type etc. can be selected to find an unknown plant.
This
unique online plant identification system uses easy choices and images instead of a traditional plant identification key, which people new to botany often find difficult to use.
The purpose is to make it easier and more efficient to identify and find information about Montana wildflowers and other plants from the Montana flora. Therefore the guides on each family and genus page have also been set up to use
easily recognizable features and pictures of the plants to find the correct species.
A
Plant and Wildflower DVD, with
2,063 species and over 9,000 images, is available for purchase and with the same functions for search and identification as the web site. A major advantage of using the DVD is, in addition to its comprehensive content, that it can be used in the field where there is no internet connection.
Suggestions, comments or questions are more than welcome, and can be entered on the Contact Us form provided from the top menu. We are especially interested in knowing about any errors that may be found on any page, or possible inaccuracies in the results from making choices from the plant identification page.
Disclaimer: Montana Plant Life does not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information disclosed. Any information from Plant-life.org about edibility, medicinal use, or any other use, is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to be used for practical applications. If readers use information from Montana Plant Life in any way, they do so at their own risk.
