Flora Europaea

Description

Flora Europaea, published between 1964 and 1980, with a second edition of Volume One appearing in 1993, is the definitive account of the flowering plants, ferns and fern-allies of Europe, covering all plants growing in the wild, including many naturalised species and all widely cultivated crop species. It provides full keys and concise descriptions of families, genera, species and subspecies, together with bibliographic details for accepted species, summaries of geographical distribution, chromosome numbers and habitat information. Volume One brings the treatment of the first 79 families up to date. Keys and descriptions have been extensively revised, and many taxa have been incorporated, whilst others have been relegated to synonymy as a consequence of research. All synonyms are cited in the text. The Appendices have been thoroughly revised, and information on geographical distribution critically edited to give an authoritative summary of the occurrence of each species in 39 European territories.

Review of the hardback: ' ... a work of lucid scholarship ...' The Times Review of the hardback: 'The book is a model of concise writing. It gives the latest information about the taxonomy of most European vascular plants. It will be used extensively by botanists, professional and amateur, in many parts of the world.' Science Review of the hardback: 'The first volume of Flora Europaea is a splendid example of international teamwork under the technical guidance of an effectively organised national group. This plan has proved to be efficient and satisfactory. The wise self-restraint of the editors in putting their goals within humanly reachable distance, and in frankly stating the limitations of the undertaking, have resulted for the first time in the production of an extremely useful European Flora.' Taxon (Netherland) Review of the hardback: 'The production of a second edition of the first volume of Flora Europaea is a landmark. The book was first published 29 years ago, and proved a valuable spur to further research. Inevitably the quality of the individual systematic accounts were variable, but the new edition is a great step forward. Many of the accounts have been revised to a high standard by one author, John Akeroyd, and 350 new taxa have been included, hundreds new to science (20 taxa have been deleted). Martin Ingrouille, Nature