This is an updated version of the previous edition published in 1978 which became the standard botany text on flowering plants. This revision is destined to hold that position. The editor is a widely respected taxonomic botanist, recently retired as Chief Scientist of Plant Conservation of the World Conservation Union and as director of Botanical Gardens Conservation International. He has served as former chair of the botany department of the University of Reading (UK) and numerous other positions and consultancies. The book was written by 44 botanical experts who contributed various chapters and sections. This work contains entries on over 300 plant families, with over 200 families being illustrated with beautiful and botanically accurate full-color paintings. Each family entry contains information on distribution, characteristic diagnostic features, botanical classification, and economic uses of many important species in the family. A quick-reference panel shows the number of genera and species in the family, plus distribution and economically important species. World maps accompany each entry to indicate distribution, for added clarity. The book also contains an extensive botanical glossary, pictures of all types of leaf forms, information on plant and flower structure, ecology, and s and classification of the Angiosperms, the flowering plants. The publication of this book is all the more necessary in light of the continued decimation of plant species and native habitats. As Prof. Heywood writes in the first chapter, "Despite two centuries of scientific study of plant classification, we are still largely ignorant about detailed taxonomy and biology of the majority of flowering plants. Moreover, the situation has now become highly critical because the tropical countries which house the rich floras are now under great pressure." This book will no doubt increase anyone's appreciation and understanding of flowering plants as well as the relationships of various plant families to each other. As a reviewer in Nature wrote, "This book is more than a textbook of taxonomy, it is a publication which will stimulate an interest in plants within any who opens its covers." Article copyright American Botanical Council. ~~~~~~~~ By Mark Blumenthal">by Vernon H. Heywood. 1993. Oxford University Press, NY. Hardcover. 335pp. $45.