Just in time for summer's educational adventures, Cornell Plantations has published A Field Guide to Cornell's Natural Areas On and Near Campus, by Nancy L. Ostman and F. Robert Wesley.

Complete with maps and descriptions of plant communities, the booklet details wild areas within walking and bicycling distance of Cornell University's central campus. Habitats include remnants of old-growth forest, young forest, creek gorges, meadows, flood plains and shrub thicket.

Most areas described in the booklet, such as the forest around Beebe Lake, are managed by Cornell Plantations, but a few irresistible treasures that are managed by other Cornell departments also are included. One such site is McGowan Woods, an important forestry research site for the Department of Natural Resources, renowned for its blanket of trilliums and other wildflowers in the spring. Publication of the field guide is made possible by funding from Cornell alumni Anne and Tom Foulkes '52.

The companion to the new guide, A Field Guide to Cornell's Off-Campus Natural Areas, was published in 1997 and describes 17 natural sites in or near Tompkins County. Both guides include directions and information about access and are illustrated with line drawings of plants typical of the natural areas.

The field guides are intended to help faculty and students from Cornell and other local institutions select the most appropriate sites for teaching field classes and conducting research but also are useful for hikers, bird-watchers and nature photographers. Both guides are available at the Plantations Garden Gift Shop for $4.95 each.

Cornell Plantations' grounds are open to the public, free of charge, from dawn to dark each day. For more information, contact Cornell Plantations, One Plantations Road, Ithaca, N.Y. 14850, phone (607) 255-3020. Or visit Cornell Plantations' web site at http://www.plantations.cornell.edu to find out what's blooming at Plantations, follow the online guide to the Plantations Path and check schedules of Plantations classes, lectures and special events.