Photo of Grass Orchid — Orchidaceae. Native. Wetland margins, bogs. Throughout region. Napeague, Long Island, 2018.

Thank you for visiting my gallery of New York’s wildflowers. This is a personal gallery of photos I have taken in the field. I hope to continue to add photos, so check back soon. You can also visit my Flickr pages where you can browse my album of New York Wildflowers.

I have been photographing the plants I encounter in the field for over a decade with the intention of keeping a record of sightings. Hopefully, this gallery will help you to identify a plant, as well as to appreciate the diversity and beauty of our wildflowers. This gallery is not intended as a comprehensive guide to all the wild flora of New York. Please see my New York Wild Flora page for a list of print and digital resources and guides.

Wildflowers include flowering vines, shrubs and small trees. Plants are arranged by habitat, and within each habitat, by color group, and within each color group, alphabetically by family. Colors can vary, so check a similar color group. Also, some plants may appear in more than one habitat. I give the common name followed by the Latin name, using the nomenclature in The Catalogue of Vascular Plants of New York by David Werier (The Torrey Botanical Society, 2017), which is updated on the New York Flora Association website, newyork.plantatlas.usf.edu. This website is an excellent resource for identifying New York’s wild flora, but its photo database is limited. For an excellent image database, I go to the website of the New England Wildflower Society, gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org. Even though their focus excludes New York, it is a very useful resource.

Using print and online guides, I make every effort to accurately identify the plants, but it can be a tricky business. Different species of plants can look similar, they can hybridize, and they can evolve local variants or even subspecies. I welcome any corrections from you botanists out there. Just email me. Thanks!