Alden’s guide great reference for outdoors

What does reindeer lichen look like? Or a lenticular cloud? Where do you find krummholz? Who introduced the gypsy moth to New England and when? How many tornadoes are there annually in the Northeast and where would you find them?

Are there poisonous snakes in New England? If so what kind and where would you find them?

The answers to these, as well as some more commonly asked questions about our flora and fauna, can be found in the latest offering from the National Audubon Society – “Field Guide to New England.” At a friendly size of 4 by 8 inches and weighing in a just under a pound, it’s one heck of a handy reference for anyone interested in the outdoors around these parts. Perhaps that’s why its on the list of top sellers?

It features 1,500 pictures, including 1,000 of local animals and plants, which principal author Peter Alden describes as “representative (of) common species of mushrooms, algae, lichens, mosses, ferns, conifers, trees, shrubs, wildflowers, marine invertebrates, spiders, insects (with strong dragonfly and butterfly coverage), fresh and salt water fish, amphibians and mammals…”

I picked up a copy ($19.95 plus tax) at the Maine Audubon Society’s Field’s Pond headquarters in Brewer. It’s interesting from the perspective of giving the reader an overview of the region, from topography to geology, to giving one a picture and description of wildlife and plants common to this area. Instead of taking several guides into the field, you can take this one along and be pretty sure that what you find out there is going to be described in this book.

Alden is the first to point out that it’s not a comprehensive reference. The concept is to provide a quick reference to the most commonly found species for our neck of the woods. You won’t find flamingos in the bird section or black widow spiders in the spider section, but you will find the black guillemot, the razorbill and Atlantic puffin (Alden says it’s a page for Maine birdwatchers) and the deer tick with other arachnids common to New England.

At the outset you get a description of the region’s natural highlights including its mountains, coast, islands, and river valleys, how the land came to be sculpted (with short, concise and easy to understand geologic terms terms) and our habitats.

Then you’ll read about conservation and ecology and the likes of introduced species (like purple loosestrife which is crowding out native wetland plants and making many fresh water marches biologiclly unproductive monocultures) and some on the progress of conservation-minded folks like Percival Baxter who gave us Baxter State Park. You can read about the Weeks Act of 1911 which made it possible for the federal government to purchase parcels of land like the White Mountain National Forest, or the Audubon Society’s efforts to protect threatened species.

The guide has a section on weather as well which helps take some of the confusion out of our region’s patterns. (The answer to how many tornadoes and where? On average, the author says, nine per year mostly within “tornado alley” between northern Connecticut and southeastern New Hampshire.)

And there’s a section with four seasonal maps of the night sky to help you identify the constellations. Then it begins with plants (roughly 100 pages), goes into invertebrates (about 50 pages) fishes, frogs and snakes (45 pages), birds (roughly 70 pages) and mammals (about 25 pages) all illustrated with marvelously reproduced color pictures.

It’s the kind of book, Alden said, “I wanted as a kid in Concord (Mass.)” There were plenty of bird books, but guides on butterflies or flowers were scarce. And trying to find something common to a particular region was nearly impossible. Publishers, Alden said, were more interested in publishing comprehensive guides for the whole country.

“The reality is,” Alden said, “we’re only in one area at a time. Why carry around a book with 80 percent of the species which are not here?” There are maybe 12 kinds of oak trees in New England. Larger books might list more than 100 different kinds of oaks, but 88 of them you won’t find here.

“I tried to create a core reference where you can find concise descriptions designed for residents and visitors … and there was an opening in the book market,” Alden said. It’s sort of a combined travel and field guide for our section of the country (there are some 50 pages on parks and preserves in the region). And there are other guides for the other three corners of the U.S. – Florida (which Alden said would be handy for our Snowbird population), California and the Pacific Northwest which are selling well.

According to Paul Boccardi, spokesman for Alfred A. Knopf Inc., publisher, there are other regional guides in the works for fall 1999 publication. These will include the southeast (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky) and the Desert Southwest (Nevada, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico). Alden, of Concord, Mass., is the principal author for the series.

Alden said the guides can appeal to anyone and to most ages. Even children who can’t read will be able to point to pictures of animals or plants they may have seen.

Oh, yes, krummholz. It’s German for crooked wood and it’s the tangled, stunted forest on mountain slopes just below the tree line. And the poisonous snakes? There are two found in New England (none in Maine): the timber rattlesnake found from southern New Hampshire and Lake Champlain south and east to the Blue Hills of eastern Massachusetts; and the copperhead found in the Blue Hills of eastern Massachusetts and southwestern Massachusetts as well as western Connecticut.

It was Leopold Trouvelot, 27 Myrtle St., Medford, Mass., who introduced the gypsy moth to North America, Alden says. It was in the 1860s when Trouvelot was experimenting with the European moths when he allowed some to escape.

You’ll have to pick up a copy of the book to see what a lenticular cloud or reindeer lichen looks like.

And one last little insider’s bit of trivia. The first editions of the guide, Alden said, had a picture of a moose at Baxter State Park on the cover. A decision was made to pull the picture and substitute a picture of birches and a maple tree in its fall splendor (which may have been taken in Baxter State Park). The credit page for the cover photo identifies the picture as a moose at Baxter. In later editions, Alden said, the credit page will be corrected.

Jeff Strout’s column is published Tuesday and Thursday. He can be reached at 990-8202.