Complete plant encyclopedia set

Alright fellow permies I'm in a bind. I'm in search of a complete encyclopedia of plants and have found nothing that's more than a single book.

What I'm looking for is this and I really would expect this to exist.

A encyclopedia that consist of many books covering plants of all sorts plus their history, uses, growing locations, etc

Has anyone found anything like this at all I've looked and looked and have found nothing more than single books that only cover a select category or set of plant type but I want something that covers everything.

Any help would be great.

There's this thing called the internet. I suspect if you want a printed encyclopedia all you would be able to find is one that is many years old. They're not made anymore - the web has superseded them. Remember Encyclopedia Britannica?

Colin McGee wrote:There's this thing called the internet. I suspect if you want a printed encyclopedia all you would be able to find is one that is many years old. They're not made anymore - the web has superseded them. Remember Encyclopedia Britannica?

Actually yes I do remember encyclopedia Britannica I grew up with it.

I want a collection because I look at the world as if there were no internet when it comes to things like this.

Does that mean I will not use the internet? No. But if I had my choice I'd rather have the books.

I prefer books too - as it happens I work in book publishing. All I'm saying is that I think it very unlikely that you'll find a recently published multi-volume encyclopedia of anything. Britannica is no longer with us, except online. From Wikipedia: "The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes[1] and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition; digital content and distribution has continued since then."

I understand that but I wouldn't care if it was a older set. I do appreciate your point of view on it and I totally agree with it but I'm just staying hopeful that maybe there will be something out there and if more than just one person (myself) were to look then maybe something could be found.

In that case I suggest you try Abe Books - http://www.abebooks.com/ - or your local used / antiquarian bookseller. Where are you located?

I'm in SE Oklahoma

A quick Google search turned the following used bookshops up - no idea if any are near you though.

http://www.second-chance-books.com/

http://gardnersbooks.com/

https://www.hpb.com/105

Also, even though they're the Great Satan, sometimes Amazon can surprise you!

There are several excellent gardening books out there but many of them are geared to a specif location.  We like Neil Sperry's Complete Guide to Texas Gardening and Reader's Digest North American Wildlife, an illustrated guide to 2,000 Plants and Animals. With this last one we have only find a few plants that are not listed but this is general a wildflower book.  If you go to ebay and put in "plant encyclopedia" you will get several like: American Horticultural Society A to Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, but most of these are just one volume.

As far as the internet, I have found Burpee's to be a great place for many plants.  I don't buy their plants or seed just read about them.  Most seed companies have good websites.  Also Dave's Garden is fairly good.
 
For wildflowers I mostly use:

http://www.wildflower.org/plants/

You could print out information you find about the plants you are interested in and put them in page pockets in a loose leaf notebook.

Richard Force wrote:Alright fellow permies I'm in a bind. I'm in search of a complete encyclopedia of plants and have found nothing that's more than a single book.

What I'm looking for is this and I really would expect this to exist.

A encyclopedia that consist of many books covering plants of all sorts plus their history, uses, growing locations, etc

Has anyone found anything like this at all I've looked and looked and have found nothing more than single books that only cover a select category or set of plant type but I want something that covers everything.

Any help would be great.

I doubt such a critter exists...at least it didn't 20 years ago when I was in the business. My primary go to source was the 'Index kewensis', but you would need to be very familiar with botanic nomenclature for it to be of much use. A quick Google search turned up these:

https://www.amazon.com/Flora-Gardeners-Encyclopedia-set-K/dp/0881925381
http://www.usefulwildplants.org/encyclopedias
https://www.hachette.com.au/roger-elliot/encyclopaedia-of-australian-plants-vol7

The organization "plants for the future" have a very solid database available. You can search through their website and download info of each species as pdf file. I find downloading pdf for each plant more convenient, so that I made a referance "book" for the plants in my garden.
Alternatively they have their database available as a cd and also as a book (Im not sure whether it includes all 7000 though).  The book is also avaible on amazon.  
They also share their bibliography for free (given in the main page). Bibliographies are good places to search for golden apples!
Have fun!
http://www.pfaf.org/