Plants of the World: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Vascular Plants

Maarten J. M. Christenhusz · Michael F. Fay · Mark W. Chase

Nov 2017 · University of Chicago Press

About this ebook

Plants of the World is the first book to systematically explore every vascular plant family on earth—more than four hundred and fifty of them—organized in a modern phylogenetic order. Detailed entries for each family include descriptions, distribution, evolutionary relationships, and fascinating information on economic uses of plants and etymology of their names. All entries are also copiously illustrated in full color with more than 2,500 stunning photographs. A collaboration among three celebrated botanists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Plants of the World is authoritative, comprehensive, and beautiful. Covering everything from ferns to angiosperms, it will be an essential resource for practicing botanists, horticulturists, and nascent green thumbs alike.

About the author

Maarten J. M. Christenhusz is a freelance botanist who has worked for the Finnish Museum of Natural History in Helsinki, the Natural History Museum, London, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He is the founding editor of the journal Phytotaxa, deputy editor of the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, and coauthor of The Book of Orchids: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World, the last also published by the University of Chicago Press. Michael F. Fay is the senior research leader in conservation genetics at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and chair of the IUCN Orchid Specialist Group. He is chief editor of the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society and a leading researcher in conservation and evolution of plants. Mark W. Chase, former director of the Jodrell Laboratory at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is now a senior researcher there, focusing on genetics of orchids and tobacco. He is one of the founding researchers of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group and author of Orchids: The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Oncidium, coauthor of The Book of Orchids, and one of the four editors for the six-volume series Genera Orchidacearum. The authors live in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, where they grow more than 140 plant families in their private garden.