This November, riding along back roads, I noticed plant pods standing tall among wind-battered grasses. What were they?

At home, I searched the computer for “pods.” Most references were for furniture-moving containers or coffee-making equipment.

Then I remembered a tan paperback book from years ago: “Pods, Wildflowers and Weeds in their Final Beauty,” by Jane Embertson, with photographs by Jay M. Conrader. (My copy was dated 1979. I found that it’s still available through Amazon.)

Embertson shows how spring, summer and autumn flowers, lovely in themselves, can have a longer life when their pods or afterblooms are dried and used in indoor arrangements. She explains how to pick those stems and when to pick them so their heads don’t shatter or tatter.

Where does one find these plants and recognize them? Some grow in swamps, for example; others in dry areas; still others under fencerows (or along stone fences). Look in your own flower beds, too.

Start reading the single-page beginnings, which include a section on arrangements, until you come to the “Color Guide.” Now, discover full-color photos of flowers for sun, then woodland and part-shade plants before wetland-lovers.

Each type gets a page, with its colloquial, then botanical name. Learn where and when it blooms, with a short description. Then there’s a photo of its pod, taken against a black background. At the bottom of the page is a color picture showing how that kind of pod can be used in an indoor arrangement. By this time, you’re on your own, because now your curiosity has you flipping pages to identify plants in flower or after bloom, in the pod stage.

Before the glossary and index, a short section lists “Grasses, Sedges and Rushes and Winter Skeletons.”

Perhaps you thought a sown seed becomes a seedling, then a flower. Next, the flower produces seeds and that’s all there is to it. This author shows how even the skeleton left from the seed-empty plant can be used, prolonging the pleasure of that brief life.

For Embertson, each growing project becomes an adventure and a discovery. Does it belong on your bookshelf or in the town library?