Michael R. Slanker BS. MS. DVM

During my 20 year teaching tenure at Michigan State University as a Board Certified Clinical Veterinary Toxicologist and Board Eligible Anatomical Pathologist I had a significant interest in poisonous plants.

While at MSU I was part of the Veterinary poison control hotline. I had many situations where the caller had only the common name of the plant and I had limited resources to equate this common name with a scientific name and other common names to determine the potential toxic principles of the plant. It was during this time that I kept telling myself that I needed to write a book about the many common plant names associated with their scientific name.  I also found out there were many Scientific Name Synonyms.

When I left MSU and worked as a pathologist for the state of Florida I finally had time to start my project. During my research of the common to scientific names data I came to realize there were several scientific name synonyms so I added this information to my project.

I feel that this data will benefit anyone that has any interest in plants from hobbyists, nurseries, flower shops, to professors as it includes flowers, weeds, trees, succulents, and fungi form all parts of the world.