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Michael A. Dirr’s standard reference, Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, 5th Edition, 1998, is the basis for a new CD-ROM from PlantAmerica: The Interactive Manual of Woody Landscape Plants on CD-ROM. This new resource offers the complete textual treatment of 1,670 species and 7,800 cultivars of trees, shrubs, and woody vines found in the familiar tome. Each species and cultivar is accessible through a listing of scientific and common names that takes the user directly to the text, line drawings, and 1,500 full color images. Built to communicate with Dirr’s Photo-Library of Woody Landscape Plants on CD-ROM, this interactive manual allows the Photo-Library’s full 7,600 images to be viewed from within its interactive interface. However, the real power behind this popular text, put to CD-ROM, is the searchable database that allows the user to select criteria, run a search, then explore the resulting list of eligible species. This searchable database fine tunes the process of selecting the right plant to suit the aesthetic and cultural demands of each unique garden site. Search categories include: morphology (flower color, fruit color, size of plant), culture (light, water, hardiness zones), and sundry other features (colonizes, attracts butterflies, edible fruit).
