Plant Systematics

Hardback  608 pp, 180 illus.  ISBN 0126444609      £39.99

• Contains numerous cladograms that illustrate the evolutionary relationships of major plant groups, with an emphasis on the adaptive significance of major evolutionary novelties
• Provides descriptions and classifications of major groups of angiosperms, including over 90 flowering plant families
• Includes a comprehensive glossary of plant morphological terms as well as appendices on botanical illustration and plant description

Plant Systematics contains the essential paradigms, concepts, and terms required for a basic understanding of plant systematics at the graduate or undergraduate level. Plant systematics is an area central to numerous other biological disciplines, and a large subset of plant scientists are required to take a course in plant systematics. Almost all ecologists, horticulturalists, plant developmental biologists, and plant pathologists are interested in plant systematics because it is central to their studies of the plants that form such a large part of every ecosystem and experimental system.

Readership: Graduate and undergraduate students in botany, plant taxonomy, plant systematics, plant pathology, ecology, as well as faculty and researchers in any of the plant sciences.

Contents

Preface

UNIT 1. SYSTEMATICS

• Plant Systematics: An Overview
• Phylogenetic Systematics

UNIT 2. EVOLUTION AND DIVERSITY OF PLANTS

• Evolution and Diversity of Green and Land Plants
• Evolution and Diversity of Vascular Plants
• Evolution and Diversity of Woody and Seed Plants
• Evolution of Flowering Plants
• Diversity of Flowering Plants: Amborellales, Nymphaeales, Austrobaileyales, Magnoliids, Ceratophyllales, and Monocots
• Diversity and Classification of Flowering Plants: Eudicots

UNIT 3. SYSTEMATIC EVIDENCE AND DESCRIPTIVE TERMINOLOGY

• Plant Morphology
• Plant Anatomy
• Plant Embryology
• Palynology
• Plant Reproductive Biology
• Plant Molecular Systematics

UNIT 4. RESOURCES IN PLANT SYSTEMATICS

• Plant Identification
• Plant Nomenclature
• Plant Collecting and Documentation
• Herbaria and Data Information Systems

Appendix 1. Plant Description
Appendix 2. Botanical Illustrations
Appendix 3. Scientific Journals in Plant Systematics
Glossary
Index