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The Flora of North America will be a unique compendium of taxonomic information about the more than 17,000 species of plants that grow in the United States and Canada. This introductory volume presents information on the physical and biological factors that have affected the evolution and distribution of plant life throughout North America. Essays on such topics as geography, paleofloristics, and human impact are written to summarize current knowledge and to provide access to the relevant literature. The almost 100 drawings that accompany the introductory essays were taken from various 19th and 20th century works. They were chosen in part to illustrate plants mentioned within the text and in part as historical examples of the style and quality of botanical illustration from an earlier era to the present. Future volumes of Flora of North America will contain full descriptions of each species, along with information about the species' habitat, geographical range, and basic ecology.
Table des matières
- List of contributors
- Introduction
- History of the Flora of North America Project
- A. Physical Setting of North America
- 1: Luc Brouillet and R. David Whetstone: Physiography and Climate of North America
- 2: Donald Steila: The Coils of North America
- B. Paleofloristics, Paleovegetation, and Paleoclimates
- 3: Alan Graham: History of the North American Vegetation - Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) - Tertiary
- 4: Paul A. Delcourt and Hazel R. Delcourt: Paleoclimates, Paleovegetation, and the Paleofloras of North America During the Late Quarternary
- C. Contemporary Vegetation and Floristics
- 5: Michael Barbour and Norman Christensen: Vegetation of North America North of Mexico
- 6: Robert F. Thorne: Phytogeography of North America North of Mexico
- D. Humankind and the Flora
- 7: James Reveal and James Pringle: Taxonomic Botany and Floristics in North America North of Mexico: A Review
- 8: Ronald Stuckey and Theodore Barkley: Weeds in North America
- 9: Charles B. Heiser Jr.: Ethnobotany and Economic Botany of the North American Flora
- 10: George Yatskievych and Richard Spellenberg: Plant Conservation in the Flora of North America America Region
- E. Classification Systems Used in the Flora of North America
- 11: G. Ledyard Stebbins: Concepts of Species, Genera, and Ranks
- 12: Warren H. Wagner Jr. and Alan R. Smith: Pteridophytes of North America
- 13: James Eckenwalder: Gymnosperm Classification
- 14: Arthur Cronquist: A Commentary on the General System of Classification of Flowering Plants
- 15: James Reveal: Flowering Plant Families: An Overview
- Literature Cited
- Index to Authors
- Index
