References

The following are pdf versions of open-source wild plant books and other great resources.

Among Rhode Island Wild Flowers
W. Whitman Bailey; 1895 (668 kb)

New England Wild Flowers
W. Whitman Bailey; 1897 (1.03 mb)

Flower Calendar
Roger Williams Park Museum Bulletin, 1911, (1.03 mb)

Wild Flowers of New England
Chester A. Reed, 1912, (1.4 mb)

Orchids of New England
Henry Balwin, 1894, (11.6 mb)

The book has an updated nomenclature list on page 160.

The following reference is “an enumeration of plants growing without cultivation in the state of Rhode Island.” It is available here with the permission of the Internet Archive and the Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Plants of Rhode Island
J. L. Bennet, 1888 (5.75 mb)

The following reference on ferns has a list of updated nomenclature at the end of the key.

Ferns and Evergreens of NE
Edward Knobel, 1895 (3.3 mb)

The following articles are reprinted with the permission of The American Fern Journal.

Palmer, Ernest. “Fern and Fern Allies of Cumberland, Rhode Island”
American Fern Journal 37 2 April-June, 1947: 33-38 (291 kb)

Crandall, Dorothy L. “County Distribution of Ferns and Fern Allies in Rhode Island”
American Fern Journal 55 3
July-September 1965: 97-112 (281 kb)

The above articles on ferns have an updated nomenclature list at the end of the article.

This book is available with the permission of the Arnold Arboretum Library

Native Trees of Rhode Island
Levi W. Russel, 1900 (7.14 mb)

Note: On page 64 is a photo of a Buttonwood (Sycamore) tree next to the Betsey Williams Cottage in Roger Williams Park. The tree is still standing.

The following is an article about Orchid fertilization excerpted from “My Studio Neighbors.”

A Few Native Orchids and their Insect Sponsors
William Hamilton Gibson; 1898 (2.46 mb)

If you use Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide a lot, there is a Feb. 2021 update of the scientific names available at this link:

Newcomb’s Name Changes – 02/21

You can write the changes directly in the guide and it will take a while but is worth it.