Flowering Plants, Dicotyledons - Capparales, Malvales and Non-betalain Caryophyllales

Hardcover  X, 418 pp, 97 illus  ISBN 3540428739      £207.00

This encyclopaedia contains a comprehensive treatment of the taxonomy of the families and genera of ferns and seed plants. The present volume, the fifth in this series, deals with three major groups of dicotyledons, the Capparales, Malvales, and Non-betalain Caryophyllales. The taxonomy of these groups, which comprise 40 families and 752 genera, is based on the results of the most recent research. This is especially true of the families Cruciferae and Malvaceae, to which more than two thirds of the genera treated in this volume belong. The integration of morphological information and the results of molecular studies have led to a revised classification and have opened the way to an understanding of character evolution in these strongly diversified groups.