Including a Key to Native and Cultivated Flowering Plants in North Temperate Regions

by James Cullen

 

An essential guide to identifying flowering plant families (wild or cultivated) in the Northern Hemisphere, James Cullen's fully up-to-date Practical Plant Identification gives details of plant structure and terminology along with practical keys to use in identifying the 318 families into which flowering plants are currently divided. The keys can easily be worked backward for checking identifications. Containing descriptions of families and listings of the genera within them, it also includes a section on further identification to genus and species levels.

 

Cullen skillfully leads the reader from the restrictive disciplines of older taxonomy into an era of increasing numbers of plant families defined by DNA analysis. Although aimed primarily at students of botany and horticulture, Cullen's concise, user-friendly approach makes his book a perfect introduction to plant identification for anyone interested in plant taxonomy.