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Reference Works
Available
Publication year: 2010
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| ISBN-13 (i)The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) has been changed from 10 to 13 digits on 1 January 2007: | 978 90 04 17718 5 |
| ISBN-10: | 90 04 17718 3 |
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| Cover: | Hardback |
| Number of pages: | 1112 pp. |
| Number of volumes: | 2 |
| Google Book Search: | View this book at Google Book Search |
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| List price: | € 196.00 / US$ 290.00 |
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Table of contents
Foreword
Preface
The conifers of the world, an introduction
The distribution and ecology of conifers
The economic importance of conifers
The conservation of conifer diversity
Synopsis of families and genera
Taxonomic treatment of families, with keys to families
Taxonomic treatment of genera and species
(in alphabetical order), with keys to sections, subsections and species
Glossary
References
Lists of illustrations
Index to botanical names of conifers
Reviews
'This deserves to be called the Bible of Conifers. A true vademecum containing indentification keys as well as information about evolution, classification, ecology, anatomy, economic importance and conservation. <...>
The splendid photos confirm that conifers, thanks to their stylish seed cones, can compete in beauty with flower-bearing plants.'
Jerroen Scharroo (The Netherlands), Bionieuws<\i>, 10 July 2010
'This is, quite simply, a superb work: the culmination of the author's lifetime spent studying conifers. It is beautifully and comprehensively illustrated, exceptionally thorough, entirely up to date and wholly authoritative.
There is no previous treatment of all the conifers which is remotely comparable. Anyone who has - or has simply admired - Farjon's book on the genus Pinus, his work on Mexican pines, his illustrations of the Pinaceae or most recently his monograph of the Cupressaceae, will want this too.
The various editions of Dallimore & Jackson, and of Krussman's guide to cultivated broadleafed conifers, are useful as far as they go, but are tremendously biased towards the cultivated trees of arboretums and plantations in northern Europe and North America. For those trees they are thorough & helpful, but they are tools for gardeners rather than monographs for botanists and dendrologists. John Silba's 1986 guide - 'census of the Coniferae' - while treating all the tropical conifers neglected by the others, is much more concise and therefore of necessity a much more superficial work. Eckenwalder's recent offering via Timber Press is comprehensive but largely fails to incorporate the scientific advances and increased understanding of the last twenty-five years.
This, by contrast, passes every test one might set it with flying colours. The introductory matter sets the conifers in a clear scientific context. The classification reflects a modern cladistic philosophy, coupled with a pragmatic understanding of the limits of that approach in a group where most of the diversity that has ever existed is long extinct. The descriptions of each family, genus and species are thorough, precise, careful and extremely consistent. The species delimitation is perhaps a little on the conservative side, but carefully justified and argued in every case where it might be controversial. The big tropical & southern hemisphere families - Podocarpaceae, Cupressaceae, Araucariaceae - are covered as thoroughly as the data permit and far more thoroughly than in any other general treatment. We have no modern monograph of the Araucariaceae or Podocarpaceae as a whole, nor even of many of the major genera, and Farjon's book therefore plugs huge gaps in the basic reference literature. The layout is neat and clear.
What is perhaps most impressive is the intellectual coherence of the book. Farjon's whole life has been devoted to the study of conifers and he has published in-depth studies of the taxonomy, ontogeny and ecology of conifers across several families. He brings to this book an unrivalled depth and breadth of knowledge, and unlike some books written after a lifetime studying a subject, it nonetheless remains thoroughly current. <...>
[I]t is a reference book on conifers! However, if you are a forester, botanist or a gardener, enjoy trees in parks or forests, want to know more about the trees that form the great conifer forests of the Pacific Northwest or which hang on in the forested islands of the western Pacific, or if you simply love plants, love books, or love conifers, this is very much a book for you. It should certainly be on the shelves of every university and college library where botany or forestry is taught.
Given the size of the pages, the high quality binding (of over a thousand pages), the immaculately reproduced line drawings, and the colour photographs, the price is excellent value. I cannot recommend it enough.'
Timothy Waters (London, UK) on Amazon.com, June 2010
Readership
Botanical Institutes (libraries), Biological Faculties of Universities (libraries), Dendrologists, Foresters, Horticulturists, Ecologists, Conservationists (forests and trees), Members of Botanical and Dendrological Societies.
About the author(s)
Aljos Farjon, FLS is a botanist who studied the taxonomy and ecology of conifers at the University of Utrecht, Oxford University and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew where he is currently (after retirement) Honorary Research Associate. He has published 10 books and 55 scientific papers on conifers since 1984.
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Conifers are known to everyone as a conspicuous kind of evergreen trees or shrubs that feature prominently in gardens and parks as well as in many managed forests in the cool to cold temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Numerous books have been written about them and continue to appear, mostly with a bias towards these uses in Europe and North America. This new handbook of the conifers is departing from this traditional approach in that it includes all the world's 615 species of conifers, of which some 200 occur in the tropics. It gives as much information about these and the Southern Hemisphere conifers as about the better known species, drawing on research into the taxonomy, biology, ecology, distribution and uses by the author over nearly 30 years. The result is a truly encyclopedic work, a true handbook of all the world's conifers, richly illustrated by the author with his line drawings and photographs taken from the natural habitats of the species.
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