Author: Michael D. Geller
Subject: New Jersey and the Region/Ecology
Paper ISBN 0-8135-3135-7
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-3134-9
Pages: 256 pp., 66 illus.
Description: A guide to identifying the woody plants of the New Jersey Pine Barrens
Within southern New Jersey lies the largest expanse of undeveloped land in the megalopolis between Boston and Washington, D.C. This is the Pine Barrens, our nation's first National Reserve. Because the sandy soil is only marginally suitable for most agriculture and because the location amounts to a peninsula, settlement has been limited and the current ecology is relatively untouched. Visitors are struck by how much vegetation there varies from the surrounding areas. As New Jersey's population increases, the Pine Barrens becomes even more valuable as an ecological preserve.
A Key to the Woody Plants of the New Jersey Pine Barrens is a hand-illustrated, user-friendly guide for both the interested student and weekend naturalist. The keys list all of the woody plants of the Pine Barrens except for a few rare, non-native species. In the keys and in more than fifty highly detailed drawings, Michael D. Geller describes the basic features of these plants and explains how to identify them in both in summer and winter.
Along with his set of workable identification keys, the author provides an enjoyable introduction to the geology, ecology, and history of the region, and relates each to the unique flora of the Pine Barrens. The book provides readers with an effective means of identifying the plants that are hallmarks of one of the state's last wild areas.
Michael D. Geller is an associate professor of environmental studies at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
