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As attractive and useful as the classic Peterson & McKenny Field Guide to Wildflowers which covers virtually the same northeast American territory. Newcomb, however, uses a traditional arrangement, organizing the 1,375 entries according to botanical structure rather than visual appearance. He distinguishes type of plant (wildflower, flowering shrub, vine), leaf characteristics, and flower parts. The books look surprisingly similar--on the left page, descriptive listings, on the right, black-and-white drawings of a complete stalk superimposed on a representative leaf. Both have full-color insets--Peterson's are clustered by color, Newcomb's appear periodically--and identifying material on the end papers. Although Newcomb's may be a more difficult book for beginners, relatively few botanical terms are used and the system itself--of increasingly fine distinctions-is just as valid for the field. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.