We have an amazing variety of plants locally, with over 1200 species in Salt Lake and Davis Counties. Over the past several years Bill Gray has been photographing them and linking the pictures to text from Lois Arnow's classic, but out-of-print, "Flora of the Central Wasatch Front, Utah". Some of you have been on his wildflower hikes in the past couple of years.

Approximately 2500 photographs are combined with text on a CD-ROM, which can be used with either Macintosh or PC computers. There are parallel tracks for expert and novice. All of the original technical keys, descriptions and glossary are included. For the layman, a set of informal descriptions has been written in English, and a non-technical key for identifying plants has been created. This is a really astonishing resource - useful, informative, and very beautiful indeed. You have never seen anything like it!

Copies are available through SOC. Call Dave at (801) 363-SAVE to order yours. Price is $25 per copy, plus $2 mailing. Proceeds help local and national conservation groups such as SOC and The Nature Conservancy.

Penstemons are wonderful flowers in the wild, and in the garden - ranging from 2 inch high creepers to 7 foot giants, in shades of blue, red and white.  Most of them are drought tolerant, so do well in our climate.  They occur only in North America, and Utah is the richest of any State - about 70 of the 280 species are native here.  A whole society (the American Penstemon Society, APS) was created for their study and culture.

In collaboration with the APS Bill Gray has created a photographic CD along the lines of his Wasatch Flora (see above) as a companion to an APS book produced by Dale Lindgren and Ellen Wilde.  There are about 800 photographs of 222 species and many cultivars, along with descriptions, cultural notes, distribution maps, etc.  Users can add their own photos and notes, or print a photo with description.

The interactive programs are compatible with both Macintosh (OS 8 and later) and Windows (98 and later).  They require a minimum of about 20-25 megabytes of RAM.

Copies are available through SOC.  Call Dave at (801) 363-SAVE to order yours.  Price is $25 per copy, plus $2 mailing. Proceeds help local and national conservation groups such as SOC and The Nature Conservancy.

Please read on for a review of the Penstemons CD, which will clarify its features and use.

Penstemons: An Interactive Guide with Photos
William R. Gray

If you love penstemons you need this program.  It is a very useful addition to the library of anyone who loves penstemons.  It is just the thing to browse on a cold winter’s day when you’re thinking of all the wonderful plants you’re going to see and grow next spring.  It was created as a companion to the recently published, Growing Penstemons; Species, Cultivars and Hybrids by Dale Lindgren and Ellen Wilde (Infinity Publishing, Haverford, PA 02003).  It has over 800 photographs including 222 of the 284 listed species of penstemons plus many cultivars and hybrids, all in breathtaking color.  The computer program is easy to install and easy to manipulate with simple clicks on icons to navigate.

Dr. Gray has transferred much of the information from the Lindgren/Wilde book along with most of the slides from the American Penstemon Society slide collection into the data bases of the program and more is expected as new photos are obtained and the program is updated.  The data for each penstemon species is arranged in card file with one page devoted to each species.  On that page is shown general and cultivation information for the species, up to six photos and a map of most of North America showing the state locations where the species can be found.  In addition there are a number of other icons which can be clicked to do other things such as magnify the photos to full screen size, obtain more detailed species information on anthers, staminode and botanical classification, find cultivars developed from the species (primarily North American), write or retrieve personal notes on the species and even add or retrieve your own photos of the species.  I found that being able to view the color photographs of a species right next to its description is very desirable and helpful in learning how to identify it in the field.  A nice feature of the magnified photographs is that the name of the photographer is shown below each. 

The program provides several ways to retrieve information.  The simplest is to either enter the species name or pull down a menu with all of the species names on it and click on the one you want.  There is also a clever and useful search and sort capability where you can sort penstemons by color or state.  For example, to find all of the red penstemons found in Colorado I simply clicked on Colorado, Red and Search and up came a list with more names that I had remembered.  The list shows the botanical name, common name, subgenus, section and subsection for each species.  A simple click on a blue button next to the species name takes you immediately to the species page described in the last paragraph.

Another feature that I found very useful is the ability to print the species page including one user-selected photo.  This is easily done and useful for field, and in my case, garden identification, by being able to take the photos to the plants.

In addition to the descriptions of 284 penstemon species there are listings for 131 cultivars and hybrids.  The majority of these have been developed in the US and Canada.  The large number of European developed cultivars and hybrids are not available in this program.  The author states that there are still sixty some species with no photos with many of these being from the Mexican species.  No doubt that if this program is successful the number of species with photos will increase and hopefully we will finally have one single accessible source of photos and descriptions for all penstemon species – and cultivars and hybrids as well. 

The computer program comes on one CD and will load on either a Macintosh (System 8 or higher) or Windows (Windows 98 or higher) operating system with at least 25 megabytes of free space on the hard drive.  I installed the program on my computer with Windows 98 in just a couple of minutes with no problems.  The installation guide is located in the middle of the jacket cover and I found it reasonably easy to follow.  The basic installation stores the program on your hard drive and keeps the data bases with the photos and descriptions on the CD.  After installation, the program can be accessed by simply double clicking the icon on the desktop of your computer.  This is the manner in which I have used and reviewed the program.  As an alternate you may load the entire photo library on to your hard drive if you have 150–200 megabytes of extra space to devote to it.  If you do this you do not have to have the CD in place when accessing the program.  The author states that by copying the photos on to your hard drive you get a faster and smoother display.  I didn’t do this but found the basic installation quite satisfactory.

Two very interesting features of this program are the ability to add your own photos and notes to any species you wish.  There is space for up to six additional photos per species.  I found adding the notes quite straightforward but did not try to add my own photos.  To accomplish this requires one to scan their photo into the correct , then place it in a User Library APS photo folder and finally add it to the appropriate species file.  The resulting User Library photo folder, like the photo library provided with the program, may or may not be copied on to your hard drive.

This program written in a very professional manner by Dr. Gray owes an enormous debt to Ellen Wilde and her encyclopedic knowledge of penstemons and careful maintenance of the APS slide collection for many years.

Dr. Gray states that part of the proceeds from CD sales will go to the work of the APS. 

Reviewer: Robert C. McFarlane
Member APS, NARGS