In December 2015, Linda Nagy received her Colorado Flora Certificate. “While I was researching and writing Rocky Mountain Wildflowers Field Guide in 2013, I joined the Colorado Native Plant Society and began taking their scientific courses to increase my knowledge of the wildflower flora in Colorado. The Colorado Native Plant Society has excellent resources, data bases, and knowledgeable teachers to provide information on Colorado’s more than 2500 different plant species,” said Linda. In 2013, Linda began taking courses both indoors in classrooms and outdoors on nature trails and completed her work in 2015.
To earn the certificate it is necessary to take at least 3 Native Plant Master Courses and to pass an exam that includes identifying plants by scientific names, ecological facts, and whether they are natives or aliens. Additional questions require knowledge of family names and definitions and examples of noxious weeds. Linda passed all courses with the grade of A or A+. She is now eligible to become a Native Plant Master by meeting certain requirements of volunteering and teaching.
The expanded second edition of Rocky Mountain Wildflowers Field Guide was released in March of 2016. Linda and her husband, retired professional photographer and graphic artist, Bernie, wanted to improve their best-selling guide with the addition of more pages; that meant increasing the number of wildflowers to 270 (50 more than the first edition).
” It was quite a challenge to show in this new addition as many wildflowers of all colors as possible especially since there is such an abundance of yellow and white flowers that look similar to each other at first glance,” said the author. The new 4"x6" size guide has a sturdy cover with rounded corners to make it a perfect size to slip in a pocket or backpack and color-coded pages to easily identify wildflowers by color.
Bernie and Linda traveled throughout the Colorado Rockies and to parts of Wyoming and Montana to find and photograph wildflowers at the Southern and Central Rockies.
Their new comprehensive wildflower guide at $14 retail is available through www.highcountryartworks.com, Amazon, and better gift and bookstores.