Flowering Plants of the World

By V.H. Heywood and Vernon H. Heywood

Book Overview

This beautifully illustrated work is an invaluable reference which includes entries on more than 300 families of flowering plants, from Acanthaceae to Zygophyllaceae. Entries on each family consist of concise and readable accounts of the distribution, diagnostic features, classification, and economic uses of its members. More than 200 family entries are illustrated in full color, as are the comprehensive glossary and the informative introduction to the forms, structure, ecology, uses, and classification of flowering plants. Originally published in 1978, this new edition has been updated and corrected by Professor Heywood--one of the world's top authorities-- and is arranged taxonomically. The book serves as a classic reference that will be valued by naturalists, horticulturists, botanists, and everyone who enjoys the colorful elegance of plants.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195210379
• ISBN13: 9780195210378
• Release Date: November 1993
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 3.67 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 11.4" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

The Flowering Plants

Intended as a coffee table book for every household, Heywood became in the 1970's the "botany bible" that opened the eyes of world-traveling naturalists to the magnificent diversity of the world's flowering plants . At long last we had a chance to identify that fantastic tropical tree and what it was used for economically. To this day, 40 years later, I consult Heywood daily with joy. I have bought crates of this book to distribute as gifts to my students. It is true that contemporary plant systematists are revolutionizing the world of plant taxonomy with new molecular data, and deride Heywood as obsolete. Family names and relationships are in a maddening confusing state of flux, will change tomorrow. Heywood provides great practical and professional information under the traditional family names.

Great general reference

The book is a good, fundamental reference for flowering plants. I use it to supplement courses in botany and find it popular with my students. Indices & glossary are excellent, as are the figures for identifying features of reproductive and vegetative anatomy of plants.