How to Identify Southwestern Plants

Is it a tree or a bush? Is it a cactus or a succulent? Is it a flower or a weed? Find out by learning how to identify Southwestern plants, from the southeast coast of California through the dry deserts of Arizona to the rural plains of West Texas.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Full-color field guide on Southwestern plants
• Binoculars
• Camera
• Three-ring notebook
• Unlined paper, hole-punched
• Plastic zip-lock bags, hole-punched
• Pens and pencils
• Colored pencils
• Crayons

1. Assemble your notebook with hole-punched paper and plastic bags. Since your interest in plant identification could last a lifetime, it’s advisable to use a three-ring notebook so that you can always incorporate new pages into each plant’s specific section to keep all of its notes together.

2. Get a good field guide to Southwestern plants. Read it all the way through or just skim it. It’s the best way to familiarize yourself with the types of plants that grow in this part of the country before you go out into the field.

3. Gather all your plant identification tools: your field guide, binoculars, camera, notebook, pens and pencils, colored pencils and crayons. Head out into the field, whether it’s a field trip deep into the desert or right outside your backdoor.

4. Collect leaf samples from trees and shrubs. Details to note include the shape, margins and arrangements. Leaf shapes may be needle-like, linear, rounded, oblong, elliptic, heart-shaped, ovate, obovate, lancelate or oblanceolate. Leaf margins may be entire (smooth), toothed, lobed or wavy. As for leaf arrangements, individual leaves will be either directly opposite for one another on the stem, or alternating on either side of the stem in a staggered arrangement.

5. Use your paper and crayons to get bark rubbings from trees and shrubs. Bark details to note include whether it’s smooth, irregular, ridged and fissured, peeling vertically, peeling horizontally or rough flaking.

6. Use your binoculars to see the tops of tall trees and note what you see.

7. Collect fruit and flower samples and put them in your plastic bags.

8. Make note of the location for each plant, including its surroundings. Is it in the desert or in the woods? Is it growing close to other plants or off by itself somewhere?

9. Make drawings or take pictures of each plant.

10. Look through your field guide, page by page, using your notes, samples, illustrations and photographs for identification.

Tips & Warnings

• Any good field guide on plants will include photographic examples of the leaf, flower, fruit and bark details mentioned in the steps above.
• Create a system of lettering or numbering to keep your notes and samples in order. For instance, write the letter A on the notes, drawing and sample for one specific plant.
• You can never have too many field guides, as each one differs in its presentation of information. For instance, that wildflower you’ve been trying to identify for weeks through one field may pop right out at you in another. And don’t limit yourself to field guides only about Southwestern plants. Field guides on North American plants in general can be equally helpful.