Living Plants of the World

Fülszöveg

This is a systematic, fully informative non-technical presentation of the plánt life that clothes the earth. It covers all the major groups of plants which reproduce by means of seeds, including the vast array of flowering plants (more than two-thirds of the plánt kingdom) and their near relatives, the cone-bearing trees. The 150 families treated have been selected for their interest to man as decoration, íood or medicine, as narcotic, perfume or potion, in trade or industry, or for their historical significance. To explain the development of this wealth of plánt life, an introductory chapter telis how vegetation emerged from the seas and diversified into forests of woody trees, and how seed plants later evolved among the giant ferns. Other ancestral forms, such as flowers and fruits, developed far more recently, with grasses on the plains going back less than sixty millión years. Each of these forms has its descendants in the plants of the present. Both text and illustrations... Tovább

Fülszöveg

This is a systematic, fully informative non-technical presentation of the plánt life that clothes the earth. It covers all the major groups of plants which reproduce by means of seeds, including the vast array of flowering plants (more than two-thirds of the plánt kingdom) and their near relatives, the cone-bearing trees. The 150 families treated have been selected for their interest to man as decoration, íood or medicine, as narcotic, perfume or potion, in trade or industry, or for their historical significance. To explain the development of this wealth of plánt life, an introductory chapter telis how vegetation emerged from the seas and diversified into forests of woody trees, and how seed plants later evolved among the giant ferns. Other ancestral forms, such as flowers and fruits, developed far more recently, with grasses on the plains going back less than sixty millión years. Each of these forms has its descendants in the plants of the present. Both text and illustrations present an extraordinary variety of exotic as well as familiar plánt forms: giant redwoods in their cathedral forests, the sacred lotus from China, precious spices on which world trade grew prosperous; plants that trap insects for food; trees that yield incense, flavourings, or powerful drugs; the hardy cactus of the deserts and the delicate orchids of the lush tropics. The matchless collection of photographs in colour and black-and-white come fromphotographers all over the world. Vissza