The long-awaited second edition of Kartesz's Synonymized Checklist is finally available. The first edition, by John Kartesz and his sister, Rosemarie Kartesz, published in 1980 by the University of North Carolina Press, has served as a primary reference for understanding nomenclature of the North America flora. The current edition includes nearly 20,000 new entries, including currently accepted names and synonyms, coveting a total of 290 families, 3,164 genera, 21,757 species, 937 hybrids, and 8,872 infraspecific taxa. The geographical area treated includes the continental United States, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, and Greenland. This monumental database is a production of the Biota of North America Program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, which initiated the present project in 1973. In addition to checking hundreds of regional manuals, state floras, species checklists, botanical journals, monographs, and revisions, the author has examined 1.2 million herbarium specimens in order to help establish accuracy and synonymy for the work. Like the first edition, Volume 1 is arranged alphabetically by family, genus, species, and subspecific taxa within the Pteridophyta, Gymnospermae, and Angiospermae. Following the accepted name is a list of synonyms associated with the species. Lists of excluded taxa and anomalous names are also included in the first volume. Author citations, the majority of which have been painstakingly checked against original literature sources, are included for each taxon from the genus level to infraspecific designations. Volume 2 of the second edition is a quick-reference thesaurus containing all names from the checklist from the genus level downward in an alphabetical list. Accepted names appear in Roman type and stand alone. Synonyms are in italic, followed by the currently accepted name. This is an excellent tool for finding the currently accepted name quickly and painlessly. The scope of this work is beyond the capabilities and years of a lifetime of any one individual. Therefore, once the initial draft list was produced, the author submitted various sections to hundreds of specialists in distinct taxonomic groups for review and critical comment. Those individuals are acknowledged by name and institution in the first volume. The second edition of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland is an extrodinary reference for anyone needing to know the numbers, kinds, and names of both native and non-native plant species of North America. This exceptional tool provides the most current and comprehensive summary of accepted plant names and their synonyms back to 1900. Whether you are an amateur or professional botanist, this work is an essential resource. Article copyright American Botanical Council. ~~~~~~~~ By Steven Foster">by John T. Kartesz. 1994. Timber Press, Inc., Portland, OR. Hardcover. Vol. 1, Checklist, 688 pp.; Vol. 2, Thesaurus 816pp. $149.95 (not sold separately). ISBN