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Books : Science : Biological Sciences : Taxonomic Classification
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First published in 1966, this is a guide to aspects of Latin usage in the botanical field and is a source of information for gardeners, botanists, scientific historians, systematic etymologists and classical scholars. Now in its fourth edition, it summarizes the grammar and syntax and covers the roots and origins of Latin and latinized geographical names, colour terms, symbols and abbreviations, diagnoses and descriptions, the formation of names and epithets, and more.
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The definitive guide to more than 4,000 plants found in the Sunshine State
"Wunderlin brings us light-years toward an understanding of what we have and what we had in the state. He also shows us what we stand to lose to exotic species invasion, urbanization, and similar impacts of modern civilization."--Florida Scientist
"Includes paragraphs on scope of the flora, arrangement of taxa, keys, taxonomy and nomenclature, distribution, etc. Identifies exotic species that have become naturalized. . . . An extremely valuable reference."--Economic Botany
"A comprehensive identification manual to the region that has the third largest plant diversity of any state in the nation."--Publishers Weekly
"An invaluable source. . . . Wunderlin’s guide brings together his years of work with the flora of Florida."--Choice
"Has quickly become THE means to key out more than 4,000 taxa of native and non-native ferns, fern allies and seed plants in Florida. . . . Required by serious plant people in the Sunshine State."--Aquaphyte
Expanded and updated, this volume is an indispensable reference to the highly diverse flora of the state. Both popular and comprehensive, this new edition contains updated nomenclature and the inclusion of more than 100 additional species, making it the most inclusive identification manual to the more than 4,200 taxa native to or naturalized in Florida.
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Biologists and laypeople alike have repeatedly claimed victory over life. A thousand years ago we thought we knew almost everything; a hundred years ago, too. But even today, Rob Dunn argues, discoveries we can't yet imagine still await.
In a series of vivid portraits of single-minded scientists, Dunn traces the history of human discovery, from the establishment of classification in the eighteenth century to today's attempts to find life in space. The narrative telescopes from a scientist's attempt to find one single thing (a rare ant-emulating beetle species) to another scientist's attempt to find everything in a small patch of jungle in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. With poetry and humor, Dunn reminds readers how tough and exhilarating it is to study the natural world, and why it matters.
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Finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science and Technology: the surprising, untold story about the poetic and deeply human (cognitive) capacity to name the natural world.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus set out to order and name the entire living world and ended up founding a science: the field of scientific classification, or taxonomy. Yet, in spite of Linnaeus’s pioneering work and the genius of those who followed him, from Darwin to E. O. Wilson, taxonomy went from being revered as one of the most significant of intellectual pursuits to being largely ignored. Today, taxonomy is viewed by many as an outdated field, one nearly irrelevant to the rest of science and of even less interest to the rest of the world.
Now, as Carol Kaesuk Yoon, biologist and longtime science writer for the New York Times, reminds us in Naming Nature, taxonomy is critically important, because it turns out to be much more than mere science. It is also the latest incarnation of a long-unrecognized human practice that has gone on across the globe, in every culture, in every language since before time: the deeply human act of ordering and naming the living world.
In Naming Nature, Yoon takes us on a guided tour of science’s brilliant, if sometimes misguided, attempts to order and name the overwhelming diversity of earth’s living things. We follow a trail of scattered clues that reveals taxonomy’s real origins in humanity’s distant past. Yoon’s journey brings us from New Guinea tribesmen who call a giant bird a mammal to the trials and tribulations of patients with a curious form of brain damage that causes them to be unable to distinguish among living things.
Finally, Yoon shows us how the reclaiming of taxonomy—a renewed interest in learning the kinds and names of things around us—will rekindle humanity’s dwindling connection with wild nature. Naming Nature has much to tell us, not only about how scientists create a science but also about how the progress of science can alter the expression of our own human nature. 27 illustrations
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At the biological crossroads of the Americas, Costa Rica hosts one of the widest varieties of plants in the wold, with habitats ranging from tidal mangrove swamps, and lowland rainforests, to dry tropical evergreen and deciduous forests.
Field Guide to Plants of Costa Rica is a must-have reference guide for beginner and expert naturalists alike. It provides a thorough survey of more than 850 plant species, each entry accompanied by color photos and a concise yet detailed narrative description. Plants are conveniently grouped by the different types of vegetation: palms, tall trees, shrubs, woody vines, herbaceous vines, herbs, grasses and ferns. Along with 1400 color photographs, the guide also includes an illustrated glossary of plant parts, five maps of Costa Rica, and laminated covers for durability in the field. With so much readily accessible information, this book is essential for exploring Costa Rica's common and conspicuous flora from the plants growing along the roadside to the best natural parks.
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A comprehensive introduction to vascular plant phylogeny, the Third Edition of Plant Systematics reflects changes in the circumscription of many orders and families to represent monophyletic groups, following the most recent classification of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. The taxonomic evidence described includes data from morphology, anatomy, embryology, chromosomes, palynology, secondary plant compounds, proteins, and DNA. Molecular taxonomic methods are fully presented, as are the results of many recent studies, both molecular and morphological. A chapter on the history of plant classification puts current systematic methods into historical context. Issues relating to variation in plant populations and species, including speciation and species concepts, polyploidy, hybridization, breeding systems, and introgression are carefully considered. Appendices cover botanical nomenclature as well as field and herbarium methodology. The text is copiously illustrated, using in large part the informative analytical drawings developed as part of the Generic Flora of the Southeastern United States project.
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Providing information on 2400 species of ferns and flowering plants throughout North America, this guidebook is illustrated to show their exact geographic distribution by county. Keys provide information for flora identification and data on other properties of these plants is also included.
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This fourth edition of Contemporary Plant Systematics combines the latest in updated literature and additional plant family representations with innovative electronic media.
Among the features of this fourth edition are:
- New chapters on the latest developments in contemporary plant classification and the role of systematics in preserving plant diversity
- 500 all-new line drawings
- Detailed descriptions of 275 plant families, using one page or a double-page spread for each family, with all relevant drawings and descriptions
- More than 60 color plates with more than 500 color photographs of plant specimens
- The updated third edition of the University of Wisconsin Photo Atlas of Vascular Plants (on DVD), now with more than 8,500 plant images representing 325 plant families
- The all-new Interactive Keys to Vascular Plant Families of the World (on CD) for easy identification of plant families and cross-indexed to Contemporary Plant Systematics
- An extensive bibliography to world flora, with more than 1,000 listings.
Packed with rich, four-color illustrations, this new edition is ideal for a broad-view beginning text and highly functional as a reference book for basic plant systematics. It gives students and serious amateur gardeners/botanists--wherever they may live in the world--a sufficient bo
- New chapters on the latest developments in contemporary plant classification and the role of systematics in preserving plant diversity
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Flora of North America, Volume 3, provides information on many of the most familiar wildflowers and trees in North America. Included are treatments of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), with such plants as delphiniums and columbines, and the poppy family (Papveraceae). Most of the important broadleaf tree species are covered, including the oaks (Fagaceae), elms (Ulmaceae), birches (Betulaceae), walnuts (Juglandaceae), plane trees (Platanaceae), and magnolias (Magnoliaceae). Many striking families are covered, such as the dutchman's pipe family (Aristolochiaceae), and the aquatic families Nymphaeaceae (water lilies), and Nelumbonaceae (lotus). As with Volume 2, this unique reference provides identification keys, summaries of habitats and geographic ranges, distribution maps, pertinent synonymies, descriptions, chromosome numbers, phenological information, and other significant biological observations for each species. The treatments--written and reviewed by experts throughout the systematic botanical community--are based on original observations of herbarium specimens and, whenever possible, on living plants. These observations are supplemented by critical reviews of the literature. For anyone interested in the definitive account of North American plant life, this newest volume in the long-awaited Flora will be valued as an indispensable acquisition.
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This comprehensive guide includes taxonomic keys to the families, genera, species, and infraspecific taxa of all the known vascular plants of Arkansas.
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"Cats is 'dogs,' and rabbits is 'dogs,' and so's parrots; but this `ere 'tortis' is a insect," a porter explains to an astonished traveler in a nineteenth-century Punch cartoon. Railways were not the only British institution to schematize the world. This enormously entertaining book captures the fervor of the Victorian age for classifying and categorizing every new specimen, plant or animal, that British explorers and soldiers and sailors brought home. As she depicts a whole complex of competing groups deploying rival schemes and nomenclatures, Harriet Ritvo shows us a society drawing and redrawing its own boundaries and ultimately identifying itself.
The experts (whether calling themselves naturalists, zoologists, or comparative anatomists) agreed on their superior authority if nothing else, but the laymen had their say--and Ritvo shows us a world in which butchers and artists, farmers and showmen vied to impose order on the wild profusion of nature. Sometimes assumptions or preoccupations overlapped; sometimes open disagreement or hostility emerged, exposing fissures in the social fabric or contested cultural territory. Of the greatest interest were creatures that confounded or crossed established categories; in the discussions provoked by these mishaps, monstrosities, and hybrids we can see ideas about human society--about the sexual proclivities of women, for in
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Philosophia Botanica (The Science of Botany), by Carl Linnaeus, was originally published in Latin in Stockholm and Amsterdam in 1751. It is a greatly expanded revision of his Fundamenta Botanica (Foundations of Botany) of 1736, summarizing his work on the classification and taxonomy of plants while adding substantial new material. The book represents a critical stage in the evolution of binomial nomenclature, with a single word to describe the genus and another for the species. Special importance is attached to accurate description of the parts of plants, and to the correct use of technical terms. There are also explanations of the effects of soil and climatic conditions on plant growth. The book includes 9 original engravings, with 167 figures showing the shapes of leaves and other parts of the plant, and 6 short memoranda describing Linnaeus' botanical excursions, detailing his ideas for garden and herbarium construction, and outlining what is required of a botanist and his pupils. There are also indexes of technical terms, genera and subjects. The first full English translation of this classic work since 1775, this beautiful book will be highly attractive to botanists and all those interested in the history of science.
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Walking a forest trail in Costa Rica, a visitor might be struck by the sight of an iridescent blue morpho butterfly fluttering ahead in the filtered daylight, or an enormous silk moth, as magnificently patterned and subtly colored as a Persian carpet, only emerging to fly at night. Elsewhere, vivid yellow and orange sulphur butterflies flock to puddles to sip the concentrated minerals. Such is the dazzling variety of the butterflies and moths unique to this region.
Gathered by biologists Daniel Janzen and Winifred Hallwachs in the forests of northwestern Costa Rica, 100 tropical butterflies and moths represent the diversity in large-format photographs by Jeffrey Miller that document the dizzying variety of shapes, colors, and markings. The photographs are accompanied by species accounts and images of the corresponding caterpillar. The authors recount these insects' feats of mimicry and migration, lift the veil on their courtship, and show how the new technology of DNA barcoding is changing the picture of Lepidopteran biodiversity.
The authors also tell the success story of Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, where the long-term
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The second of five volumes covering the monocots in North America north of Mexico, this volume features some of the most spectacular and showy native and naturalized species including orchids, lilies, irises, trilliums, hymenocallises, alliums, hostas, tulips, erythroniums, agaves, and yuccas.
Plants representing eleven families following Cronquist's classification are contained in this flora along with many species and genera of special interest in the horticultural trade or of conservation concern. The genus containing onions, garlic, and chives--Allium--is represented in the volume by almost 100 native and naturalized species. The Chicago native and enigmatic Thismia americana, one of five species in three genera of the mostly tropical Burmanniaceae, is included along with four families (Aloaceae, Stemonaceae, Smilacaceae, and Dioscoreaceae), each represented by single genera.
With 112 illustrations and 1,066 individual species distribution maps, this thorough volume has identification keys, summaries of habitats and geographic ranges, distribution maps, pertinent synonymies, descriptions, chromosome numbers, phenological information, and other significant biological observations for each species.
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Originally published in 1988 as the first truly comprehensive review of one of the largest and most popular plant families, Aroids was enthusiastically welcomed by botanists and horticulturists alike for its attention to scientific detail and delightful writing style. Now in this completely updated second edition, we learn of discoveries made in the last decade as the family has grown from about 2500 species to nearer 3200. The latest taxonomic and nomenclatural revisions are noted in the checklist of genera, and all the original drawings are included plus twice as many color photos. A new guide to the cultivation of ornamental aroids completes this well-rounded introduction to a remarkable family.
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International experts worked for nearly two decades to produce this greatest single source of information on maples. Every known maple is described, including growth habit, distribution, hardiness, and autumn color, as well as useful information on culture, propagation, and pests and diseases.
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Flora of North America: North of Mexico Volume 23: Magnoliophyta: Commelinidae (in part): Cyperaceae
The first complete treatment of the sedges of North America in more than half a century, this volume tackles the notoriously difficult to identify Cyperaceae with illustrations of all species in the group, emphasizing its great ecological importance. With extensive information on the more than 460 species of Carex, this third volume out of five covering the monocots of North America also includes 96 species of Cyperus, 68 species of Rhynchospora, 66 species of Eleocharis, and the monotypic, North American endemic Cymophyllus.
The treatments--written and reviewed by experts--all contain identification keys, summaries of habitats and geographic ranges, distribution maps, pertinent synonymies, descriptions, chromosome numbers, and phenological information. Over 100 illustrations and 945 individual species distribution maps provide ecologists, applied biologists, and other readers with an authoritative account of the Cyperaceae.