Fern Finder

August 13, 2013 By Clarke Green

I’m pretty confident with identifying trees and wildflowers, even with a lot of the understory plants we encounter but I draw a blank when it comes to ferns (the best I can do is ‘that’s a fern!’). To increase my fern identifying skills I purchased the Fern Finder before we left for summer camp this year. The Fern Finder is one of a series of books published by Nature Study Guild Publishers that uses a ‘dichotomous key’ leading the reader through a number of steps to identifying a specific plant.

I am an impatient student and I use most nature guides incorrectly by just flipping through the pictures until I find something close. The Fern finder made me slow down a bit and first learn the anatomy of ferns (important to being able to identifying them). By the end of the week (snatching an hour here and there from our otherwise busy schedule) I had learned to identify half a dozen different ferns, and have a pretty solid basis for identifying others.

I recommend the Fern Finder and the other guides offered by the Nature Study Guild. They are all available at Amazon or from the Nature Study Guild site where volume discounts are available.

Tags: Nature Books, Nature Study

About Clarke Green

Clarke has worked with thousands of Scouts and Scouters as a director at his local Scout Camp (Camp Horseshoe), and as a Scoutmaster for 30 years. He is the recipient of a number of awards recognizing his service to Scouting, including the B.S.A.’s Silver Beaver, District Award of Merit, and is a Vigil Honor member of Octoraro Lodge 22. He is author of the blog and podcast at Scoutmastercg.com, The Scouting Journey, and Thoughts on Scouting. An avid outdoorsman and amateur actor, he lives in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania with his wife Teddi.

Comments

Bill Boelke says

August 13, 2013 at 1:05 pm

One of the problems I have with the current scout book, is that it helps the boys identify some tress and plants, but does not offer any benefit in understanding or being able to identify those plants. On the other hand, I recently saw a military manual that helped identify several plants and offered a resource for each plant whether for food purposes, medicinal or etc. I believe it would be much better for the boys to understand why they are identifying certain plants other than just knowing what it is. As such, I have books such as edible plants and berries, a tree book, a tree and shrub book, and a poisonous plant book. Also, after seeing your wanting to identify ferns, I had to ask myself why or what benefits do ferns supply and found this resource with many mdeicinal uses of different ferns http://www.planta.cn/forum/files_planta/paragraphaeparagraph_190.pdf
mikemenn says

August 13, 2013 at 7:54 am

I’ve enjoyed the Tree Finder for many years for the same reason. Wish other guides would use this process. Heck, wish there was an app like this. Think it would make millions.