First published 70 years ago, this revised edition features new line drawings and colour photographs, an appendix that updates the botanical nomenclature, an introduction that focuses on B. W. Wells and his passion for the state's landscape, and an afterword that discusses the continuing relevance of Wells's ideas. Moving from the Atlantic coast westward, Wells identifies eleven major natural gardens: the sand dune community, salt marsh, freshwater marsh, swamp forest, aquatic vegetation, evergreen shrub bog (or pocosin), grass-sedge bog (or savanna), sandhill, old-field community, upland forest, and high mountain spruce-fir forest. He devotes the first part of his book to a general account of the vegetation and habitats of each community and then identifies and describes the wildflowers found there.