In the early part of the 20th Century, an Austrian naturalist and artist, Edward Stuhl, lived and worked around Mount Shasta, California. Ed made it a life-long pursuit to paint the wildflowers found on the mountain. Working with the available literature, Ed was able to scientifically identify the plants he was painting. In doing so, Ed recorded 189 species of plants, painted them vividly and labelled them with both their scientific and common names.

In the spring of 2015, these paintings were reproduced in a field guide format with updated scientific and common names. The book is designed to be used in the field and has several specific attributes for this purpose. The book is ordered on the botany of the flowers so that similar plants are physically next to each other. Each painting has its own page with a description and location information. In addition there are identification keys and tables, a map to wildflower locations and directions, a visual index based on flower color, an illustrated glossary, references and a complete index. The book also includes a modern plant list of all the vascular plants on Mount Shasta that occur above 5,000'.

The book has been developed by Jane Cohn, Linda Freeman, Ken Goehring and Michael Zanger. The original paintings are housed at the Meriam Library in Chico, California, and high quality digital scans were used for this book.