"Vårfloran" is a Swedish field guide from 1999 by Bo Mossberg and Lennart Stenberg. I assume the latter is the actual author, while Mossberg is the illustrator. The subject of the field guide is plants which bloom in the spring, with a few non-flowering "horsetail" plants being thrown in for good measure as well. Here, "spring" is defined pretty broadly, from January to May (in northern Sweden, by contrast, its May to June).
Since running around in early spring looking for, say, horsetails isn´t exactly my kind of thing, I can´t really judge whether or not "Vårfloran" is a good field guide or not, but it´s certainly aesthetically pleasing (more or less - not even Mossberg can improve a horsetail). It also contains more text than usual for field guides, including information on traditional herbalism!
The area covered include Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Both native species and various garden escapees have been included. Some of the plants are pretty iconic "springtime flowers", such as the daffodil, the poet´s daffodil, various crocuses, coltsfoot, the hepatica, and the wood anemone. There is also the mysterious calypso orchid. Fun detail: both the Western skunk cabbage (from the US) and the Asian skunk cabbage (from the Russian Far East) can occasionally be found in Sweden as garden escapees - the two species even hybridize?! There is even a plant that flowers around Christmas and yes, it´s called Christmas rose...
All plants in this book are based on actual specimens found by the authors in the wild, and the actual habitats are often depicted, as well. The book could be a good collector´s item even if you don´t understand the contents. Perhaps recommended?
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