The culmination of more than fifty years of research by the foremost living expert on plant classification, Diversity and Classification of Flowering Plants is an important contribution to the field of plant taxonomy. In the last decade, the system of classifying plants has been thoroughly revised. Instead of describing every individual family, Takhtajan includes descriptions in keys to families, which he calls "descriptive keys." The advantage of descriptive keys is that they give both the characteristic features of the families and their differences. The delimitation of families and orders drastically differs from the one accepted by the Englerian school and from the one accepted in Arthur Cronquist's system. Takhtajan favors the smaller, more natural families and orders, which are more coherent and better-defined, where characters are easily grasped, and which are more suitable for information retrieval and phylogenetic studies, including cladistic analysis (because it reduces polymorphic codings).

The book is divided into three parts: Flower, Anther, and Ovule. The principal aim of this volume (along with the other 3 volumes in the series) is to summarize the classical and current concepts about flower generative organs, their structure and development, and about seed formation processes. The book contains ample material that can be employed

This volume provides the origins and meanings of the names of genera and species of extant vascular plants, with the genera arranged alphabetically from R to Z.

A new edition of one of the most practical and authoritative botanical dictionaries available.

Located a thousand miles off the coast of Africa, 32 granite islands called the Seychelles are home to plant species found nowhere else in the world. Fearing the disappearance of this endangered flora, renowned botanical artist Rosemary Wise spent ten years painting the Seychelles' unique plant life in its natural habitat. This book features Wise's beautiful paintings along with her written descriptions of the plants. 79 color plates.