Key to families and genera of native and naturalized, winter- and spring-flowering herbs, vines, and shrubs of the Raleigh area

Dichotomous keys were developed to families and genera of spring-flowering (February to mid-May) herbs, vines, and shrubs of Granville, Johnston, and Wake counties, NC. Due to the similarity in the floras, the keys should also work well for Chatham, Durham, Franklin, northern Harnett, Lee, and Orange counties. The keys are artificial in that the order of the taxa in the keys does not reflect evolutionary relationship. The keys use mainly flower characters. There is a key to 60 families of herbs and vines, a key to 35 shrub genera, and keys to genera in each of the 60 families. There is also a glossary including definitions of 63 terms.