Does anyone know of a single resource that briefly describes different climates of the world? http//http://www.worldclimate.com/, which was mentioned already, is a pretty good resource, once you get used to its quirks, especially trying to find the correct spelling for a city in the area you're looking for. Once you get into an area, you can step in any direction in 1 deg. X 1 deg. increments to find any other towns or cities in the new area that are in the website's database. There are some areas where there is little to no data. Also, you can always find the average monthly rainfall for each month for virtually any location in the database, but often the only temperature data available is a single average monthly temperature (neither the high nor the low temperature is given). It usually gives the elevation as well. Everything is in both metric and non-metric units. They've been advertising for a couple of years now that a much-improved version is being developed and will be online soon. Since it is purely a spare time hobby website done by one guy for free, you can't complain too much that it's taking him so long. There are a few books that are pretty good. I have the first two and I like the Times book a lot. They give small discussions on each country's climate, so it is helpful as a basis to start your understanding of plants that come from that country. But as Alberto said, it isn't the whole picture--especially when you run into something that is dormant during the rainy season and growing during the dry season! Times Books World Weather Guide A City-By-City Guide That Will Enable You to Forecast the Weather You Can Expect in Any Part of the World at Any Time of the Year, ASIN 0812918819 http//http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/… Fodor's World Weather Guide, ISBN 0375703497 http//http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/… The Weather Handbook A Summary of Climatic Conditions and Weather Phenomena for Selected Cities in the United States and Around the World, ISBN 0910436290 http//http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/… -- --Lee Poulsen Pasadena area, California, USDA Zone 9-10 Pacific Bulb Society - Treasurer wpoulsen@pacbell.net