Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast: A Field Guide

"Both experienced and novice users will find Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast to be an excellent tool for plant identification. Each species is presented with user-friendly descriptions and photographs of important vegetative structures as well as photographs of the species within the urban landscape. This work contains a thought provoking introduction to urban plant communities that will serve as an entry point for investigation by scholars and practitioners alike. To some, these species may stand as symptoms of environmental degradation, but Del Tredici documents the case that the urban plant community has been evolving since the first human civilizations and that it is part of a sustainable solution to vegetation management problems in the urban landscape. Recognition is the first step toward acceptance. Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast is the first field guide to acknowledge the urban plant community around us and it challenges us to judge the plants on their virtues rather than by their place of origin. This work will be the foundation for those who wish to evaluate plant communities by their function and sustainability rather than by nativity alone. We cannot go back and undo the edaphic changes and disturbance regimes that exist in our urban environments. Why should we? Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast will lead us forward."

Despite derisive labels for these plants, such as 'weedy' and 'invasive,' he contends that the public should have greater appreciation for plants that are able to contend with complex urban ecosystems.

"Peter Del Tredici provides a unique perspective on the plants we find in our increasingly urbanized environment of the twenty-first century. Rather than dismissing the nonnative plant species that have been introduced into our city habitats, he portrays them as immigrants with a history and life of their own adapting to roadsides and abandoned parking lots. Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast is a must-read if we are to understand and appreciate the world's exotic biodiversity."

"I grew up in the heart of the San Fernando Valley in the Los Angeles basin and developed an interest in plants while I was in high school. Unfortunately, I did not have a resource to identify and understand the naturalized and weedy plants of my environment. I would have found such a book a fabulous resource then and today and would certainly recommend it to those interesting in the magnificence of nature, yet living in urban environments. This is a great resource for urbanites to experience the fascination, complexity, and beauty of the plants that grow around them."

"Peter Del Tredici has written one of those rare books that completely overturns the way you look at the landscape—in this case, the landscape of the city's derelict cracks and corners, which in his hands becomes a place of unusual interest, value, and beauty. Though ostensibly a field guide, this book is much more than that—it offers a deep and wise reconsideration of our most cherished ideas about nature. You will never look at an 'invasive species' the same way again."