Wildflowers of the United States

Reference List for New York Wildflower Identification
Site	Description
NYFA - New York Flora Association	"The New York Flora Association was founded in 1990 with the goal of promoting field botany and a greater understanding of the plants that grow wild in New York State." The NYFA is a non-profit group administered by the New York State Museum Institute, funded primarily by member dues. They conduct field trips and workshops. The website has a cool feature - clicking on the "Plant Lists" menu item to the left will take you to a page with a Google Map of New York with marked sites including a link to a list of plants that can be found there.
New York Flora Atlas	"The New York Flora Atlas is a source of information for the distribution of plants within the state, as well as information on plant habitats, associated ecological communities, and taxonomy. In addition, users can learn about the location of vouchered specimens and see images to get a better visual for each plant." This is part of a joint venture initiated by the University of South Florida. The supporting organization in New York is the New York Flora Association. Among other features you can find a list of species that can be found in each county in New York.
Oswego State University of New York (SUNY) Rice Creek Field Station Digital Illustrated Flora	"This guide is designed to provide a pictoral reference to the plants of Rice Creek Field Station, a unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the State University of New York College at Oswego." Professor Andrew P. Nelson of Oswego State University of New York has prepared an excellent website presenting 725 plant species which have been identified the the Rice Creek Field Station, over 600 of which grow wild in New York. There are over 3,000 photographs illustrating those plants. Nelson, now Professor Emeritus at Oswego SUNY, includes links to the New York Flora Atlas for each of the wild-growing plants so you can determine in which New York counties the plant may be found.
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas at Austin	Perhaps the most comprehensive native wildflower information site in the United States. "Discover more than 10,050 plants native to North America."
USDA Plants Database	Great resource for native plants! Their own description: "The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories." Provides these important (to me) pieces of info: 1) Listing by state and county within a state where specific species have been identified. 2) Scientific name synonyms are listed. 3) Scientific names are matched to a widely-used common name. 4) Photographs of many species. 5) State by state list of all the species identified in that state. Official Citation: USDA, NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 22 June 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.
Flicker Wildflower Field Guide, North America	Over 9,000 Flickr member photos tagged with wfgna. The WFGNA group has good tagging requirements for their excellent photos, so you'll find, in addtion to the photo, the state in which the photo was taken, and at least a common name and the scientific name as identified by the contributor. After you get to the linked page you should add search criteria, including the state name, the color of the plant, or scientific name, to reduce the number of photos. Several states have several hundred photos(California has over 1,500!) so you'll probably want to add color to the search criteria.
WildflowerSearch.com	Steven K. Sullivan has done a tremendous job of putting together a database and search engine to help in identifying wild plants. Not only can you search by plant scientific and common names, you can narrow the results using location (currently lower 48 states and parts of Canada and Mexico), flower shape, color, size, habitat, and observation time. His database currently includes over 7,000 plants. Definitely worth checking out.
Wildflower Information.org	From the site: "WildflowerInformation.org is a resource for wildflower enthusiasts and gardeners. With a growing interest in the environment and natural gardening, our objective is to offer comprehensive information that is easy to use, and accessible for those from the casually interested to the expert." While this information doesn't appear to be on the website itself, WildflowerInformation.org seems to be owned by American Meadows, the "recommended wildflowers seed supplier" of WildflowerInformation.org.
Item at Amazon: Wildflowers in the Field and Forest: A Field Guide to the Northeastern United States (Glassberg Field Guide) (Commission to USWildflowers.com if purchased)	This is a photographic field guide discussing more than 1,500 species of wildflowers found in the Northeastern United States. Plants are arranged arranged by flower color. Within color flowers with other similar attributes such as leaf arrangement and petal arrangement are grouped together. Based on the little bit I've been able to see of the book on Amazon, it appears to be pretty good, but it may have sparse supporting descriptions of the plants that are frequently needed if you want to identify to the species. It received good reviews (4+stars) on Amazon.
Item at Amazon: National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers--E: Eastern Region - Revised Edition (Commission to USWildflowers.com if purchased)	"...gives full descriptions of more than 650 species found east of the Rocky Mountains, along with notes on several hundred more. The eminently sensible organization relies on first-impression visible characteristics..." I use this guide frequently, and unless I have a good idea what family a flower is in, this is usually still my first stop. In my opinion, a must-have for beginning wildflower enthusiasts; augments more locale-specific wildflower references.

Looking for Wildflowers for a specific state? Check here: Number of References for New York: 10